I'm a long way away from the UK at the moment, and I've been watching BBC World. I've noticed, since I last watched it, there's been a shift towards UK centric reporting. Disproportionate coverage of the UK cold weather, concentrating on it far too much, a HardTalk interview with Nick Clegg, and just now on the news ticker, the Jonathan Ross news !
I don't mind, suits me, but it's not how it should be, should it ?
Last edited by Markymark on 8 January 2010 7:18am - 3 times in total
I wonder, Mark, if you've caught BBC World News during the simulcast hours where it shares the same output as News 24. There is a slightly more UK-biased leaning during those broadcast hours because it does also serve the UK as well as the rest of the world. However, I would say that the leaning is ever so slight.
During the stand-alone World hours of broadcast (i.e. not simulcast with UK output), I find the news to be very international and - in fact - sometimes lacking in UK-centric stories. Right now, there is the threat of a leadership challenge in the UK as well as awful, crippling weather. I have found mself having to flick periodically to Sky News because World hasn't covered either of those stories in quite the same depth as I would be interested to see.
IMO (and not just because I am the channel's biggest fan), they have got the balance just about right at the moment.
Even more so, given that Asia Today will actually be anchored from Asia in the future. I feel that BBC World needs to make more use of it's Asian bureau (they have London and Washington quite extensively, but Singapore rarely except ABR.)
I wonder, Mark, if you've caught BBC World News during the simulcast hours where it shares the same output as News 24. There is a slightly more UK-biased leaning during those broadcast hours because it does also serve the UK as well as the rest of the world. However, I would say that the leaning is ever so slight.
{snip}
Where are you, actually?
I'm in Dubai, in fact right now there's a two way between the studio and a reporter in Dunkeld, Scotland, talking about the local conditions there, 8:20 GMT. I've seen no similar two ways from anywhere else in Europe ?
I watched some BBC W last night around 15:00 GMT, and I'd say there was still UK centric stuff, and I heard the phrase,
'here in London'
from the presenter, which I've never heard before on BBC World.
Surely though the ticker should remain specific to World even during simulcasts ?
BBC World could be moving towards the France24, CNNI model which is slanted to their countries. I suspect viewers would not object to this from BBC World, but would actually expect it!
I don't think this is new, they always covered UK a bit more than other countries which makes sense. Also for example in sports (tennis) they report about Murray's results before Federer and Nadal which actually annoys me since Murray is not that big outside of the UK in the fist place.
It may not be a new development as in the last couple of years, but I would argue it has developed over the course of the past decade. At the turn of the century, it was very rare for BBC World to report on domestic UK matters. They would occasionally feature the odd British political story but would always have their own correspondent to explain it in more detail for an overseas audience. Back then they did have more of an British slant with regards to sports news, but that might be because we're one of the foremost sporting nations in the world. Certainly as far as general news was concerned, the UK only featured every now and then.
The UK Weather Story has been featured heavily on CNN and RT so the BBC choosing to go with it on BBC World isn't unexpected.
AJE have been covering it too. I do wonder what viewers to something like Russia Today make of it, this is normal or even better than normal weather for most of Russia!
Isn't it more how unprepared we were for it, than the level of snow itself?
That's not the story though, it's the duration of the cold weather. We regularly get freezing temperatures and snow especially in Scotland, but not for 3 weeks! This sort of weather isn't unusual for this latitude - look at Northern Canada for example but the Gulf Stream keeps this part of Europe warmer than it should be
I don't think we were particually unprepared for it, we're not a country that has regular long lasting snow - doing things like building snow-lanes as seen in some places would be very OTT. It's also worth remembering that in terms of things like school closures and transport being affected by the snow it's not just the UK, last time I was in the US there was heavy snow, school closures were scrolling past on the local TV news and there were big road delays. This was in a major city that gets major snow every winter
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 8 January 2010 6:00pm
