BBC Strives To Widen Appeal

On Wednesday the BBC will publish the results of a 2 year long review of its programmes. The report led by Liz Forgan, managing director of BBC radio, and Alan Yentob, controller of BBC1, revealed the BBC, although well respected by viewers in the middle-class bracket, needs to broaden its appeal. Its main targets being minority groups, younger viewers (children and teenagers) and viewers outside London and the South-East.

These findings have prompted the BBC to begin moves to rid itself of its bourgeois image and later this week, director general John Birt, will unveil a long-term strategy which sets out to attract a much wider audience. The corporation has already begun plans to shift £75m a year of programme production out of London, increasing the number of programmes made in the provinces by around 15%. A key area for change is the current affairs output, which the BBC want to make more accessible to more people. There will also be a greater emphasis on science and technology and the need to attract children who are increasingly entertained by computer games and American cartoons. A leaked copy of the report, Programme Strategy Review, portrayed the BBC as an out-of-touch institution trying to impose its ideas on its audience. According to the report “For most of the younger and less well-off viewers and listeners… the BBC (is) too conservative and highbrow and too much part of the Establishment. It does not seem to be theirs at all, but to be part of “them” – London, the state, and an exclusive educational class elite.”

The review looked at everything from the policy of buying films to ways of attracting young people. However, the emphasis is on gradual change, according to the BBC’s director of corporate affairs, Colin Browne who said that the changes would be “evolutionary rather than revolutionary”.