Response to Ofcom’s BBC Online Material Code Consultation
News-watch supports independent regulation of BBC online material but argues that Ofcom’s proposed Code preserves a fundamental weakness: it provides no route for assessing cumulative partiality across thematically related output.
Document type
Consultation response
August 2026
8 pages · PDF
AuthorS
News-watch
Ofcom’s proposed BBC Online Material Code will bring BBC websites, apps and BBC-controlled accounts on third-party platforms under enforceable content standards for the first time. News-watch supports this extension of independent regulation and submitted its response principally in relation to due impartiality, due accuracy and the complaints procedures.
The proposed Code nevertheless carries a central weakness of the existing broadcasting regime into online regulation. It defines the relevant unit as an individual online item or a series which the BBC has itself made editorially linked. It therefore provides no route for examining a properly evidenced pattern across separately commissioned but thematically related output.
This matters because partiality can arise cumulatively through repeated decisions about subjects, contributors, framing, language, extracts and omissions. Each item may appear defensible when considered alone, while the overall direction becomes visible only when the material is examined together. The present complaints process removes that wider pattern from the inquiry.
News-watch proposes a tightly bounded route for cumulative evidence. A complaint would need to define the issue and period, identify the relevant body of material or representative sample, explain its selection method and set out the alleged pattern. Once those conditions were met, Ofcom would be required to examine the evidence together and provide a reasoned decision.
Five reasons the Code needs amendment
1. Online regulation is necessary, but its scope matters
The proposed Code will extend enforceable standards to BBC websites, apps and BBC-controlled accounts on third-party platforms. News-watch supports that change, but the new regime should not reproduce limitations which already prevent important evidence from being adjudicated.
2. The BBC’s own linking decisions cannot define the evidence
Under Ofcom’s proposal, impartiality may be considered across a series only when the BBC has made the items editorially linked. A complainant identifying the same tendency across thematically related material would still be unable to have the pattern examined as a pattern.
3. Online curation can create a new editorial effect
Extracting, selecting and grouping material for online use is not always a neutral technical process. News-watch’s studies of the Today interview podcast, the BBC’s post-referendum Brexit Collection and the complete BBC Ideas catalogue demonstrate how cumulative editorial effects can arise across selected output.
4. The existing complaints route is exceptionally narrow
Between 2017 and 2025, the BBC recorded 2,275,387 complaints, while only 4,944 cases reached its Executive Complaints Unit. News-watch identified 38 upheld or partly upheld impartiality complaints, and Ofcom recorded four BBC breaches, only one concerning due impartiality.
5. Cumulative complaints can have a demanding gateway
A workable procedure need not permit vague or unlimited allegations. Complainants could be required to define the issue and period, identify a corpus or representative sample, disclose the selection method and explain the alleged pattern before Ofcom became obliged to assess the evidence together.
A Controlled Route for Cumulative Evidence
News-watch does not ask Ofcom to impose numerical equality, monitor every subject routinely or entertain vague allegations of institutional bias. It asks for a demanding but workable procedure through which properly defined evidence of a repeated pattern can be assessed on its merits.
i. Recognise a defined body of related online output as a permissible unit of cumulative assessment.
ii. Create a gateway for repeated or systemic complaints supported by a transparent corpus or representative sample.
iii. Treat headlines, captions, notifications, thumbnails, extracts and BBC-controlled promotional text as part of the relevant editorial material.
iv. Require a meaningful relationship of subject, timing, discoverability, reach and prominence before one item can be relied upon to balance another.
v. Treat active republication and renewed promotion as fresh editorial acts, and allow additional time where cumulative research cannot reasonably be completed within the normal complaints period.
vi. Enable Ofcom to obtain relevant reach and distribution data from the BBC and publish complete operational information about the complaints regime.
vii. If Ofcom considers any requested amendment to be outside its powers, identify the legal constraint clearly and advise government of the change required.