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BBC Digital News

BBC told to stop ‘muscling out’ commercial news websites by publishers

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By Seb Joseph, News editor

September 2, 2015 | 6 min read

The BBC must stop using the licence fee to overwhelm other online news publishers because its expanding digital offering is stunting the growth of national and regional news outlets, according to publishers.

The damning critique of the corporation sums up a report by the News Media Association (NMA) which has resurfaced long-held industry fears that the BBC will eventually monopolise the UK news cycle. Ongoing expansions mean that the media giant is no longer just a broadcaster and effectively is becoming a publisher that is threatening the survival of local and national players, already treading water amid shifting consumption habits, the report claimed.

The NMA, which represents all the major newspaper owners except for Ricard Desmond’s Express business and the Financial Times, wants the government to introduce 10 changes to the BBC’s objectives and management. These recommendations include measures to curb the scale of the BBC’s online operation as well as ensure it strikes partnerships with news brands rather than launch rival services. Additionally, the group of news publishers wants clearer transparency over how licence fee funded reporters are used by the BBC’s commercial international services.

“News brands are successfully making the transition to a sustainable digital world despite undoubted challenges and risks along the way,” said NMA chairman and News UK chairman Mike Darcey. “The BBC must not be given free rein to jeopardise that transition by expanding its local and international news service under the guides of providing a universal solution for a market failure which doesn’t exist.”

That last part of the quote is Darcey’s reference to the BBC’s “The Future of News” report earlier this year that claimed its expansion into local news coverage was a riposte to the widespread closure of publications across the country. It positioned its digital offering at the time as one that would fill the void in order to give people the information they need on the areas they live and work in.

The NMA’s own report slammed this conclusion and said it “misreads and overplays the imminent demise of other news media”. “The BBC’s stated ambition to expand the BBC Online news provision threatens to crowd out commercial news providers at local, national and international levels,” added the report’s researchers from Oliver & Ohlbaum.

Despite the findings, Enders has downplayed the BBC’s impact on the future of commercial news suppliers. Its own research, which was published last month, concluded that scaling back BBC News “will damage the UK’s sole source of impartial, quality and trusted news, whose independence is valued by users in the UK and around the world, risking the UK’s global soft power,” it said in a statement.

“Our research shows that UK newspaper publishers have been damaged by the internet. They face inherent challenges in monetising online audiences, in common with other news publishers. To be blunt, the BBC plays no role in exacerbating these challenges.”

A spokeswoman from the BBC said the research showed the broadcaster "plays no role in exacerbating the challenges newspapers around the world are facing".

"The public think news is the most important service the BBC provides – we are more trusted and cover stories in the ways others would not. The suggestion that we are overreaching or expanding is misleading – our share of online news is falling," she added.

"We’re doing more than ever to work with local and regional news and will set out our plans to strengthen this new partnership shortly. Our users click on BBC News links to other websites around 8.6 million times each month.”

It’s a view apparently not shared by the majority of the other members of the NMA, which is worried by a lack of clear boundaries for the BBC’s sweeping digital offering, which is rapidly moving beyond its core news remit into areas traditionally dominated by commercial players such as magazine lifestyle content and celebrity columnists.

“The UK’s news media landscape will be best served by a BBC which genuinely collaborates with news media publishers rather than compelling with them. This would make far better use of the BBC’s stretched resources while allowing space for commercial news media to innovate and thrive,” NMA vice chairman and Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield.

“The BBC repeatedly seeks to portray itself as a willing partner but all too often fails to deliver. The O&A report outlines a framework for cooperation through content-sharing targets and effective governance to enable the BBC to focus on what it is good at and make a positive contribution to a diverse UK media industry.”

Despite the conclusions, the report said the wider UK news sector remains in rude health. To ensure it continues to thrive, the NMA wants the organisation to focus on supporting and co-operating with all quarters of the industry intead of attempting to muscle them out with services funded by the licence fee.

Internationally, the report acknowledged the pressure heaped on the BBC to commercialise its news service overseas now that it has to be funded through the licence fee. The added constraints on the licence fee, which were ordered by the Government, will likely fuel calls for the BBC to create advertising and sponsorship opportunities around its international news content, concluded the report.

“The BBC’s drive to grow its commercial revenues through its international commercial news operations is likely to impact on other UK news providers who are looking to international markets to sustain and grow their core UK businesses (eg, The Guardian, The Daily Mail),” it added.

It spotlights just one of a number of challenges the BBC is currently dealing with as the future of how the organisation is set to change off the back of its charter review by the Government, that will also encompass its scope and objectives.

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