BBC Radio 4 Today: Winter 2011 Survey
An eleven-week survey examining how BBC Radio 4’s Today programme represented competing perspectives during an unprecedented period of coverage of the eurozone crisis and Britain’s relationship with the European Union.
Document type
Monitoring Survey
December 2011
145 pages · PDF
David Keighley and Andrew Jubb
Between 3 October and 17 December 2011, News-watch monitored every edition of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. All items were timed and logged, and every item relevant to the European Union or Britain’s relationship with it was transcribed in full. The resulting evidence comprised more than 411,000 words.
The survey coincided with an exceptional period of European political and economic upheaval. Coverage centred on the Greek bailout, the wider eurozone crisis, the Commons rebellion over an EU referendum and David Cameron’s claimed veto at the December European Council. Today broadcast 621 EU-related items, including 408 feature reports lasting a combined 27 hours and 19 minutes.
Although the headline numbers of broadly pro-EU and critical contributors were almost equal, detailed analysis showed that this apparent balance concealed significant differences in prominence, format and opportunity. Firmly Eurosceptic and withdrawalist perspectives were often confined to short contributions, while major elements of the debate received little sustained examination.
Key findings
1. EU coverage reached an unprecedented level
EU-related material occupied 22.5 per cent of Today’s available feature airtime—27 hours and 19 minutes across eleven weeks. This was more than four times the long-term average of 5.6 per cent and more than double the previous survey high of 10.8 per cent recorded in 2005.
2. Headline balance concealed important disparities
Of 517 guest contributions, 148 were broadly favourable towards the EU or its actions, 145 were critical and 224 were neutral or factual. Yet only 37 contributors offered firmly Eurosceptic arguments. They delivered 11 per cent of guest words, compared with 30 per cent from Europhile contributors.
3. Withdrawal was almost entirely excluded from substantive debate
Only seven of the 517 contributors were identifiable supporters of withdrawal from the EU. All appeared in short, pre-recorded soundbites; none received a full interview. Together they spoke 534 words—just 0.4 per cent of the 132,699 words spoken by guests on EU affairs—and none was able to explain the withdrawal case in depth.
4. The referendum case received less space despite greater public support
In coverage of the Commons referendum motion, supporters outnumbered opponents by 17 to 12. However, most supporting contributions were extremely short, leaving the pro-referendum case with only 37 per cent of the words and opponents with 63 per cent. A contemporaneous poll found that 70 per cent of voters supported holding a referendum.
5. Critical voices were concentrated in less influential segments
Thirty per cent of the survey’s sceptical contributors appeared in Yesterday in Parliament, where contributions were necessarily brief, pre-recorded and not tested through interview. The survey questioned whether concentrating these voices in a peripheral parliamentary summary created numerical balance while excluding them from Today’s principal live discussions.