Our role and purpose, objectives and highlights
Category: Performance
The BBC is the best news organisation in the world.
Our job is to keep making it better – to deliver more of our own original journalism, to get stories and tell stories in the ways now made possible by new technologies, to ensure ever greater value for licence fee payers, to lead the social and mobile media revolution so as to make the news available to everyone, wherever they are, now. We must do all this, but, above all, we must safeguard the public’s trust.
James Harding, Director, News
Reaching all audiences
82% of UK adults consumed BBC News each week across television, radio and online. TV News reach was slightly down but was still the main audience platform, reaching over 32 million UK adults every week. Radio news and current affairs hit a new record of 29.2 million in the final quarter of 2013. Use of the BBC News website rose to an average of 25 million UK weekly browsers in early 2014. There was record world traffic in March, with an average of 62.8 million unique browsers (UK and international) per week.
Trust
BBC News remains by far the most trusted source of news in the UK, although we are slightly below the levels reached before October 2012 when the crisis broke over coverage of Jimmy Savile and the separate Newsnight child abuse investigation in Wales. We will work hard to justify the audience’s continued trust. We will be alive to our critics and take responsibility for mistakes when we make them. We will uphold an uncompromising commitment to accuracy, impartiality, diversity of opinion and fair treatment of people in the news.
High-profile stories
The brutal murder of the soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich shocked people across the country and was our most followed story. In Syria, more than 100,000 were killed, and millions displaced. The bravery of our teams there was recognised with Royal Television Society awards. We reported on how the election of Iran’s President Rouhani is changing the dynamic in the Gulf; the assault on corruption by China’s president; how Pope Francis is reviving interest in the Roman Catholic church; and the passing of Nelson Mandela, who changed the course of history. At home, we reported on the miserable weather and a gathering, but uneven, economic recovery.
Working together
The BBC has a news network that reaches from local radio stations to bureaux across the world. We hope to put all those resources to the service of the public. We strive to cover what matters from the communities where we live to the furthest corners of the earth. Technology is transforming the news, enabling the BBC to inform, educate and, more than ever, engage. We want to help shape the future of news, using mobile and social media to ensure the news gets to everyone, everywhere, now.
Serving all audiences
- The @BBCBreaking Twitter account has more than 10 million followers
Quality and distinctiveness
- Every week, across all platforms, 82% of UK adults came to BBC Network and Regional news
Our job is to keep making it better – to deliver more of our own original journalism, to get stories and tell stories in the ways now made possible by new technologies, to ensure ever greater value for licence fee payers, to lead the social and mobile media revolution so as to make the news available to everyone, wherever they are, now."
