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BBC rebuked for lack of transparency over cuts to regional services

The BBC has outlined proposals to cut back its regional and national TV news output - Henry Nicholls/Reuters
The BBC has outlined proposals to cut back its regional and national TV news output - Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Ofcom has rebuked the BBC for a lack of transparency over cuts to its regional services.

The media watchdog said the corporation had not been open about the details of planned changes to its local radio services and television news.

The BBC has outlined proposals to cut back its regional and national TV news output and divert resources to its digital offering.

In an open letter to the BBC, Kevin Bakhurst, Ofcom’s broadcasting head, said he was “disappointed by the lack of detail and clarity” in the announcements about the alterations.

Mr Bakhurst acknowledged the “significant challenges” the BBC is facing, from the need to modernise how audiences access content to coping with “greater financial pressures”.

But he criticised the lack of transparency, saying: “The absence of important information has resulted in a lot of uncertainty for audiences, who are not clear about what the changes will mean in practice for the services they use.

“We have had to request a significant volume of additional information from the BBC in order to understand the changes and believe some of this could have been avoided had the BBC set out much clearer plans from the start.”

‘Higher level of public accountability’

Mr Bakhurst said Ofcom’s “strict new reporting rules” would ensure the corporation was held to a “higher level of public accountability”, requiring it to clearly explain its plans so the watchdog can assess whether they are in line with public expectations.

On Thursday, Ofcom released a statement outlining a new operating licence for the BBC, which it says will ensure the corporation “serves all audiences” and continues to provide a broad range of content.

Under the agreement, online services such as BBC iPlayer, BBC Sounds and the BBC website will come under licence fee conditions. This means the broadcaster will be obliged to ensure that content – including national, regional and at-risk programming – is accessible and easy to discover on these platforms.

Ofcom said the BBC would have to ensure that it provided a wide range of content across all its services, including music, arts, religion, ethics, other specialist factual content, comedy and children’s programmes.

Mr Bakhurst said he anticipated that the broadcaster would have to make further changes to “evolve to keep up with audience behaviours” and would encourage it to “consider how it can improve the transparency around announcing such changes”.