Ofcom’s annual report on the BBC

This report finds that overall, the BBC has delivered its remit over the Charter period to date. It adapted quickly to the Covid-19 pandemic and remains popular with audiences: almost nine in ten adults used BBC services each week in 2021.

However, we have identified several long-standing themes from our work to date:

• Achieving due impartiality continues to be a complex challenge for the BBC: although the BBC has a good record of complying with broadcasting rules in this area, we continue to find that audiences rate it less favourably for impartiality. We welcome the BBC’s recent actions intended to improve audience perceptions.
• The BBC must keep evolving to be relevant to all audiences: some audience groups are consistently less satisfied, such as those in Scotland, disabled audiences and those from less well-off backgrounds. Others use the BBC less, such as young people. The BBC will need to robustly hold itself to account in the delivery of its initiatives designed to meet these challenges. Alongside, the BBC needs to improve how it represents and portrays less-satisfied audience groups and must ensure that its workforce is more representative of people from different backgrounds.
• Distinctive and original UK content which reflects the lives and issues of UK audiences must continue to be a priority for the BBC: this is at the heart of how the BBC appeals to all audiences and meets its Mission and Public Purposes. As the BBC pursues its strategy it needs to maintain its commitment to this.
• Transparent decision making, reporting, accountability and engagement with industry should be further embedded into the BBC’s ways of working: we have consistently called for the BBC to be more transparent given the importance of it to many people in the UK. We have seen some improvements but there is further to go.

Ofcom’s third annual report (PDF, 6.1 MB) on the BBC covers April 2019 to March 2020.

The BBC’s Royal Charter requires Ofcom to publish a report each year that sets out how we have carried out our functions as the BBC’s independent regulator, and assesses the BBC’s compliance with its Operating Licence and other regulatory requirements.

Separately, we are required to report at least annually on the BBC’s performance against the measures we set alongside the Operating Licence. This forms the evidence base for our assessment of the BBC’s performance against its public purposes.

In this report, we assess the BBC’s performance in delivering its Mission and Public Purposes, and explain how we have carried out our functions of protecting fair and effective competition within the areas in which the BBC operates, and upholding content standards in BBC programmes.

This report finds that the BBC continues broadly to deliver on its remit through its provision of a significant volume of news and current affairs, a wide range of learning and educational content, as well as high-quality, distinctive and creative content for all audiences across its mainstream and specialist services. Although it primarily falls outside the reporting period, we comment on the strength of the BBC’s response to Covid-19, and its ability to continue meeting audience needs during the pandemic.

The BBC has shown progress in some of the areas where we raised concerns last year, for example it set out its responses to our news review (PDF, 3.0 MB) in its last Annual Plan; we recognise it will take time for the impact of these steps to be clearly measurable. There has also been an improvement in the transparency of the BBC’s workforce diversity information.

However, the BBC faces an ongoing challenge to serve all the UK’s audiences. As we pointed out last year (PDF, 2.4 MB) the BBC is still struggling to reach and retain young audiences, although we recognise that the BBC is taking steps to respond to this challenge. There remain certain groups who are less satisfied with the BBC, particularly people in Scotland, those in lower socio-economic groups, and disabled people. We welcome the fact the new Director-General has acknowledged that the BBC does not deliver to all audiences equally, expressing a commitment to serve all the UK’s audiences.

There are areas where we would now like to see the BBC go further, for example setting out more clearly how it measures the success of its actions to improve representation and portrayal of audiences. We also remain of the view that the BBC needs to set out its plans in more detail, explaining how it will deliver its priorities, as set out recently by the Director-General. We expect to see this in the BBC’s next Annual Plan. As it does this, we want the BBC to improve its engagement with the public and with industry.

This year our report is accompanied by a detailed interactive performance report, which presents extensive data on each of the Public Purposes and how well the BBC has delivered them, across the range of the BBC’s services and platforms.

Report

Ofcom’s third annual report on the BBC (PDF, 6.1 MB)

Adroddiad Blynyddol Ofcom ar y BBC (PDF, 6.8 MB)

Annex 1: Compliance with regulatory requirements (PDF, 517.9 KB)

Ofcom's letter to the BBC about the BBC's regional news and current affairs, 17 August 2020 (PDF, 193.7 KB)

BBC's response to Ofcom's letter, 19 November 2020 (PDF, 176.0 KB)

Interactive performance report

Ofcom's interactive Performance Report on the BBC

Ofcom’s second annual report on the BBC covers April 2018 to March 2019.

The Royal Charter requires Ofcom to publish a report each year that sets out how we have carried out our functions as the BBC’s independent regulator, and assesses the BBC’s compliance with the requirements of our Operating Framework and associated documents.

Separately, we are required to report at least annually on the BBC’s performance against the measures we set alongside the Operating Licence. This forms the evidence base for our assessment of the BBC’s performance against its public purposes.

In this report, we assess the BBC’s performance in delivering its Mission and Public Purposes, protecting fair and effective competition within the areas in which it operates, and securing editorial standards in BBC programmes. 2018/19 is our first full year of reporting on how the BBC has met all of its requirements in it Operating Licence.

This report finds that the BBC is broadly delivering on its remit through its provision of a significant volume of news and current affairs, a wide range of learning and educational content, as well as high-quality, distinctive and creative content for all audiences across its mainstream and specialist services. However, we have identified many of the same issues as last year, and it has been difficult for us to assess progress in the absence of a clearly articulated plan from the BBC.

We have therefore written to the Director General (PDF, 85.8 KB) alongside this report, calling on him to make clear through the BBC’s next annual plan and budget setting process a plan for addressing these recurring themes: engagement with young people; representation and portrayal; commitment to transparency; and commitment to new original UK programmes, as well as how it will engage with the recommendations of the related review of news and current affairs.

Report

Ofcom’s second annual report on the BBC (PDF, 2.4 MB)

Adroddiad Blynyddol Ofcom ar y BBC (PDF, 2.4 MB)

Annex 1: Compliance with regulatory requirements (PDF, 832.4 KB)

Annex 2: BBC performance report (PDF, 3.7 MB)

Interactive data

View an interactive report providing visualisations of key data used in our second BBC Performance Report.

This is Ofcom’s first annual report on the BBC, covering April 2017 to March 2018. The Royal Charter requires Ofcom to publish a report each year that sets out how we have carried out our functions as the BBC’s independent regulator, and assesses the BBC’s compliance with the requirements of our Operating Framework, Operating Licence and associated documents.

In this report, we provide our assessment of how the BBC is performing against the backdrop of a rapidly changing media landscape. We also set out the steps we have taken to assess delivery of its mission and public purposes, its impact on competition and to secure its editorial standards.

We consider that the BBC is generally delivering on its remit for audiences through the breadth and quality of its output, but we have identified four areas where it needs to go further. We have written to the BBC (PDF, 186.8 KB) setting these issues out and will discuss with it how it plans to address them. Where the BBC does not make sufficient progress, we will take further action.

Separately, we are required to report at least annually on the BBC’s performance against the measures we set alongside the Operating Licence. This forms the evidence base for our assessment of the BBC’s performance against its public purposes.

Report

Ofcom’s annual report on the BBC (PDF, 2.3 MB)

Adroddiad Blynyddol Ofcom ar y BBC (PDF, 3.8 MB)

Annex 1: Compliance with regulatory requirements (PDF, 231.7 KB)

Annex 2: BBC Performance Report (PDF, 1.1 MB)

Annex 3: Methodology overview (PDF, 267.4 KB)

Interactive data

View an interactive report providing visualisations of key data used in the BBC Performance Report.

You can download the data used in the Performance Report below.