The future of advertising on the BBC’s international news website hangs in the balance as the BBC Trust waits for clarification, “particularly around how advertising would be reinvested in BBC Global News and the BBC’s UK public services for the benefit of licence fee payers”.
The idea of ads on the BBC’s flagship news website is opposed by many staff as well as the site’s corporation’s commercial rivals. The news service set a new record last month, exceeding one billion monthly page views for the first time.
Opponents of the advertising plan are hoping they may be able to persuade the BBC Trust to resist the idea. BBC staff campaigning against the proposal are concerned that the international website’s integrity and reputation could be compromised if it becomes a commercial service.
Any commercial activities by the BBC must meet various criteria, including not jeopardising the good reputation of the BBC or the value of its brand. But looking at the experience in the US, there is evidence to suggest that commercial activities damage a news brand.
Credibility is under siege, partly out of a perception that the American media is more concerned about money than about the truth. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found in a report published in June 2005:
And 85% of those who cite the internet as a main source believe that news organizations are mostly motivated by a desire to expand their audience, rather than to inform the public.
A more recent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism reached the same conclusion. In its State of the Media 2006 report, it said that Americans increasingly believe that news organizations act out of their own economic self-interest.
The report is damning of the impact commercial pressures can have on the journalism:
At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. The idealists have lost. The troubles of 2005, especially in print, dealt a further blow to the fight for journalism in the public interest. “If you argue about public trust today, you will be dismissed as an obstructionist and a romantic,” the editor of one of the country’s major papers told us privately. An executive at one of the three broadcast networks told senior staff members in a meeting last year that “the ethical anvil has been lifted,” meaning the producers could dispense with traditional notions of journalistic propriety.
I am not suggesting that this is what will happen overnight at the BBC, if the ads plan gets the go-ahead. But it is ironic that the resistance to the proposal is from rank and file in the newsroom. In many US news organisations, says the State of the Media report, the fight on behalf of the public interest is also coming from the rank and file.
Advocates of the ads plan point to the growing revenues online, though the BBC recently scaled back its estimated £105m in annual digital revenues to around tens of millions.
The State of the Media report acknowledges that online revenues at news sites are on the rise. But it raises key questions which the BBC Trust should consider as it makes its decision.
The Web still does not appear to be as desirable a medium for advertisers as what it is replacing. Rivals on the Web that offer classified listings or aggregate other people’s work, but produce very little journalistic content of their own, were continuing to steal revenues away. There still appears no clear path for transferring to this new medium all the wealth that has long financed journalism for the good of civil society. For now, unless things change, it appears that the resources devoted to skilled journalism will continue to shrink as the Web grows.
The report concludes that the key question is “whether the dominant online economic model can produce quality journalism”. And this is at the heart of the matter. How will a decision to run an international online news service commercially impact on the reputation of the BBC’s news website?
As the news site prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary later this year, the BBC should be doing all it can to safeguard this jewel in its crown. It should not be contemplating actions that could undermine what has become one of the world’s most trusted and respected sources of news online.
PDF
As a Canadian, I watch both CNN, BBC and CBC, the progrmming from BBC is far superior than that of CNN and CBC, the latter being spoiled by not very clever advertising. CNN of course is all for the mighty dollar, the truthful news is of secondary importance, we look to BBC for the real story. CNN thrives on sensationalism, we are weary of their attempt to better themselves.
BBC, keep up the good work.
I agree, albeit belatedly, with Frank’s comments. As a Brit living in the USA, I am increasingly concerned by the amount and explicitness of advertising on both public radio and television. If some way could be found to do it, I should happily pay the derisory BBC licence fee (around $270 a year) than the $120 or so I, until recently, gave to my local public radio station.
It must surely rank as one of the great confidence tricks of all time that people outside the UK (and increasingly within it, too) have been persuaded to pay a minimum of $30 a month ($240 a year) for television . . . and still be deluged in amounts of advertising that British audiences have never known.
I hope the BBC continues to reject advertising from its news coverage (and preferably from all programming): no organisation taking money from industry or government can ever, thenceforward, assert its independence with any real credibility.
i like BBC its very informative and atleast wen im abroad i can rely on this news to keep me posted as it is it is one of the major international stations on earth and i allways hope to c it on and going . for from Paris to Egypt that was some times the only real source of information well keep up the good work . When it comes to such a ? as credibility many say that in a free market such as the U.K. it shoudnt matter well somtimes it dose if i want to buy a couch ill go the store if i wana c wat happend in the world i go to BBC.KEEP IT NEWS GUYS KEEP IT NEWS . thanks amadeus shebinskey