BBC Trust

The BBC Trust has today published the conclusions of its review of BBC Local Radio and local news and current affairs in England. The review looked at the performance of BBC Local Radio, BBC Regional News and Current Affairs on TV, and BBC Local News online.

The review found that the BBC’s local services form a vital component of the BBC’s news offer in England and UK public service broadcasting as a whole, with nothing comparable to BBC Local Radio and regional current affairs programming in the commercial sector. 

The Trust found that audiences see the BBC’s local services as high-quality, trustworthy and reliable both day to day and in extraordinary circumstances, such as severe weather and local emergencies.

The review found listeners to Local Radio thought of their station as a trusted friend and companion with locally focused programming for older audiences not available elsewhere. They also cited it as an important supporter of local arts and music.

However audiences are increasingly going online to find local news and information meaning BBC local services will need to work even harder to reach an ever diversifying and increasingly online UK population.

The review has highlighted three areas where there are challenges for the BBC to address: 

• Despite editorial improvements, audiences still want greater explanation of local political and policy issues on their local BBC services.
• The BBC’s local news webpages are often seen as being slow in reporting and offering a small volume of stories.
• BBC local services are much more likely to be used by white audiences rather than those from different cultural and minority ethnic backgrounds.

The Trust has asked the BBC local services report back to it in 6 months with how it plans to address these challenges.

The Trust has also set two recommendations for future regulation of the BBC: how best to regulate the changing scope of BBC news across TV, radio and online and whether future regulation may need to include oversight of BBC output offered on social media platforms.

BBC Trustee for England Mark Florman, who led the review said:

"Over the past 9 years, service reviews have proved highly effective at assessing BBC performance and improving services for audiences.

"Our review found the BBC’s local news and radio services offer something unique, high quality and trustworthy to audiences across England and attract a loyal following as a result.

"The BBC should continue to nurture the relationship with its local audiences and we have highlighted how local services should evolve to ensure this relationship is protected in the future." 

Notes to editors

1. Each BBC service is reviewed against its licence at least once every five years. More information on service reviews carried out by the Trust can be found here along with links to the Trust’s review in 2012 of BBC Local Radio and the 2014 review of BBC News and Current Affairs.
2. The Trust’s work plan for 2015/16 set out its plans for reviewing the local radio and news services in England. The review launched in July 2015.
3. The cost of the review as of publication today is £82, 980.