It’s no secret that the BBC is in a tough financial situation.
And it’s no surprise that what audiences want from news is changing.
They are rapidly moving from broadcast TV and radio to digital platforms.
And they’ve told us they want more of our best journalism – more investigations; more depth and analysis; and more from BBC Verify.
These are the key forces driving the announcement we’ve made today about changes we’re making in BBC News – changes that continue our ‘shapeshift’ from broadcast to digital, but that have involved some difficult choices.
One of the main changes is a reformat of one of our flagship programmes – Newsnight.
From its inception nearly 44 years ago, when it was introduced to bring viewers analysis and in-depth coverage of the day’s news, Newsnight has made an impact. We’ll all have our own memories of Newsnight – from Jeremy Paxman famously repeating the same question to Michael Howard to the Prince Andrew interview.
The programme is, and has been, home to key BBC talent; it continues to employ a fantastic team of talented journalists, creating a high-quality product for a discerning, well-informed audience.
But while the show has continued largely unchanged, today’s audiences consume news in a different way. They are increasingly watching breaking stories on live pages online. The news is, quite literally, at their fingertips. They are listening to podcasts, when and where they want, in which they join a community of listeners and feel part of the conversation. Linear TV is in decline, and Newsnight’s viewing figures reflect this general trend.
So I will be frank – when we started work on this announcement, I did not know if it would make financial sense to keep Newsnight on air. We, like many other news organisations, have streamlined our editorial teams to avoid duplication. It simply no longer makes sense to keep a bespoke reporting team dedicated to a single news programme with a small and declining audience, however good that programme is.
But we’ve listened to the most crucial voice - our audiences. They told us that for them, Newsnight is an important BBC brand, and that what they most value is the discussion and debate at the end of each day.
So we’ve made the decision to reformat Newsnight as a 30 minute late-night news-making debate, discussion and interview programme, airing at 10.30pm on BBC Two, every weeknight. The new programme will no longer have a dedicated reporting team, but it will have access to our top reporting talent and experts from across BBC News, who will take part in the conversation and share their expertise and insights.
There will be people – both inside and outside the BBC – who’ll worry this change means less investigative journalism across BBC News. That Newsnight’s particular type of gritty, independent, dogged reporting will disappear, leaving the BBC poorer for it.
This will not be the case. Anyone who has seen recent BBC investigations – the exposure of the toxic culture at McDonalds; the revelation of a new suspect in the Stephen Lawrence murder; the uncovering of oil companies’ poisonous gas flaring which risks the health of millions in Iraq; the undercover filming exposing abuse at a mental health hospital – will see proof we have the skills, talent and commitment across the organisation and we are delivering.
And so as part of these changes we’re investing more in our investigative reporting across the BBC – putting it at the heart of BBC News, where it can be seen by the biggest audience possible.
We’re creating a new BBC News investigations unit, bringing together existing talent and creating new reporting roles, making up a team of 39 journalists in total. The unit will work closely with investigations specialists across BBC News - including Current Affairs and the World Service – such as those on Panorama, BBC Eye and File on Four.
The unit will build on the great work of Newsnight – such as investigations into the Tavistock clinic; the Russian 331st Regiment; police officers’ racist WhatsApp chats - and of other journalists from across the BBC.
And we’re expanding BBC Verify, the specialist team with a range of investigative skills at its fingertips which is already making an impact with audiences. We’re creating specialist roles with OSINT (open source intelligence) and policy analysis expertise.
Other changes we’ve announced today are outlined here; all of which start with us asking what our audiences want, and how we can give them value, wherever they live, and whichever platforms they use.
Our recent investments in live streaming online have been hugely successful, with the best-performing getting more than a million UK users and we are building on this by shifting more resource to streaming, boosting online journalism around the clock, and making sure that the best of our in-depth, thought-provoking, and analytical journalism is much easier to find online.
We’re making changes to our story teams, closing some roles and creating others. We are reflecting what audiences are interested in, and ensuring we operate from right across the UK, with an expanded News at One contributing to a daytime powerhouse in Salford.
As the CEO of BBC News, I can tell you that there’s one thing which is non-negotiable – we will not compromise the quality of our journalism. We’ve made tough choices, but we’ve made them to safeguard BBC journalism for our digital future.
