BBC should ‘pay’ local newspapers for stories

The BBC should pay regional newspapers for stories it uses on its websites and local radio and TV news programmes, the president of the Newspaper Society has said.

Speaking to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee about the future of the BBC, Adrian Jeakings warned that “unconstrained commercial expenditure by the BBC could, if taken to its limit, wipe out the local press.”

The government an inquiry into the future of the Corporation last October in preparation for the review of its Royal Charter, which is due in 2016 and will dictate the terms of the BBC licence fee.

During a hearing on Tuesday, Jeakings said that the Newspaper Society would be “very interested” in finding a mechanism whereby local newspapers would be appropriately rewarded for creating content for the BBC and sharing it with them.

“Just stealing [content] though, we’re not keen on it,” he said.

Explaining his comments further, Jeakings said: “The state would not be determining what content was created or indeed controlling what we said.

“They would be paying for what is supposed to be an independent broadcast medium to source content of relevance to its audience. It would be far more attractive to do it that way than any form of state subsidy for what we used to call the regional press.”

The committee also heard from senior radio executives from Bauer Radio, Global Radio, and RadioCentre.