Digital TV News

Is TV news as good as it used to be?

Friday 13 January, 2012

By Duncan Heaney

BBC news agenda remains most consistent, Channel 5 most changeable.

A new independent study of television news over the last 35 years has concluded that the majority of British news programming continues to provide viewers with a thorough and serious overview of the day’s events.

The investigation, From Callaghan to Credit Crunch: Changing Trends in British Television News 1975-2009, was led by Steven Barnett, from the University of Westminster, and Professor Ivor Gaber of the University of Bedfordshire.

Researchers took data from their previous study From Callaghan to Kosovo, published in 2000, and examined another 357 evening news bulletins from 2004 and 2009. A total of 5,458 news stories from across BBC One, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and the BBC and Sky’s 24-hour news channels were analysed, and categorised as “Broadsheet” or “Tabloid”.

The results showed that, despite what many people believe, TV news has not “dumbed down” in the last 10 years. Barnett and Gaber say that, despite serious challenges to news programmes, such as audience fragmentation and other commercial pressures, there’s no evidence to suggest that reports have moved towards a more tabloid news agenda. Every channel, with the exception of Channel 5, has retained a “predominantly serious agenda”.

BBC programming was found to be most stable. The study found that, over the last 35 years, there has been no significant change in the balance of its evening news bulletins. The amount of tabloid content on ITV has doubled since 1975, but there has been no significant increase since 1999.

Of the channels examined, Channel 5 was the only one that had demonstrated a substantial shift in output during the past decade. The report identified it as moving from a predominantly tabloid agenda to broadsheet between 1999 and 2004, and then back to tabloid by 2009. As of 2009, over half of its evening news bulletins were classed as “tabloid” - by far the most of all channels.

The channel with the most consistent broadsheet news agenda was found to be Channel 4. On average, between 80% and 90% of content was classed as broadsheet, with tabloid material never rising above 20%.

Analysis of the 24-hour news channels, BBC News 24 and Sky News, found that the balance of content was similar to evening bulletins - mostly broadsheet with a heavily domestic agenda. Sky was found to have a significantly more tabloid agenda than the BBC, partly because of a greater emphasis on sport.

There are many other findings in the report, which can be found online here (PDF).

Photo by Robert Couse-Baker