BBC news and current affairs must be made more accessible to “low-approving” viewers under a new series of performance measures against which the corporation will be judged.

The introduction of a 90-second BBC One news bulletin at 8pm, presented by Kate Silverton, is seen as the model for attracting younger viewers who find the main bulletins too challenging. But the BBC was told that it must maintain the “gold standard” of its news coverage and not “dumb down” its journalism in the battle for ratings.

Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, has written to Mark Thompson, the Director-General, setting out six public purposes that must guide the corporation’s spending of the licence fee.

After extensive audience research, Sir Michael told Mr Thompson that viewers believe that there is less choice available in programmes, despite a multiplicity of channels.

He said the BBC must avoid “well-trodden paths”, revive formal educational programming for children and “reflect the realities of devolution”.

Broadening the reach of BBC journalism is a priority. Sir Michael writes: “Performance in news and current affairs is rightly seen to be strong but the BBC is not always serving everyone in the audience as it should, with those who fall within the category of ‘low BBC approvers’ perceiving a performance gap.”

The BBC published research which showed that “heartland” licence fee-payers, who tend to be older, are satisfied with news coverage. But “low-approvers”, often younger viewers, did not find the news “relevant and accessible”.

The flagship BBC bulletins have already been revamped. The return of News at Ten with Sir Trevor McDonald to ITV1 next month, will increase competition for viewers. In current affairs, Panorama has been given a prime-time makeover.

David Liddiment, a BBC trustee and former director of programmes at ITV, said: “It is very important for the BBC to enable its news services to reach the broadest audience but without tampering with the gold standard. You lose the high-approvers at your peril.”

Sir Michael said that the BBC must maintain the “gold standard” but news and current affairs had to be meaning-ful for all audiences. The BBC was also urged not to use words such as “creative” and “challenging” to describe its programmes because they create confusion. Research found that viewers believe “ambitious” means “expensive”, “creative” is equated with “arty” and challenging requires “hard work”. Programmes should instead be described as “fresh”, “new” or “different”. Sir Michael said that the BBC must “work harder to provide programmes that are fresh or demonstrate new ideas”.

A survey of 4,500 viewers concluded that there was a “bias towards entertainment” across the BBC channels. Favourites such as Doctor Who and Antiques Roadshow are treasured but the BBC is expected to provide serious drama and factual documentaries as an alternative to commercial television. While BBC Three and Four may provide such programmes, viewers said they would not be aware of this because they don’t watch those digital channels.

A priority was to address gaps in how the BBC represents Britain’s different nations, regions and communities. The Trust will report next summer on the corporation’s success in implementing its recommendations.

Purposes of the BBC

To sustain citizenship and civil society
Promote education and learning
Stimulate creativity and cultural excellence
Represent the UK, its nations, regions and communities
Bring the UK to the world and the world to the UK
Demonstrate the benefit of new communications technologies

Source: BBC Trust

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