±«Óătv rural coverage impartial, broad and comprehensive but 'deficit' in UK-wide coverage of rural England, Trust review finds
The ±«Óătv's coverage of rural affairs is, on the whole, impartial with a broad and comprehensive range of voices. But there is a deficit in UK-wide coverage of rural issues in England, an independent review commissioned by the ±«Óătv Trust has found.
The review by Heather Hancock, former managing partner at Deloitte and ex-chair of the ±«Óătv's Rural Affairs Committee, looked at the impartiality of the ±«Óătv's coverage of rural areas in the UK, across TV, radio and online. Â
Mrs Hancock found that, taken as a whole, the ±«Óătv's coverage of rural affairs includes a wide range of voices, that there is no evidence of party political bias, and coverage of controversial stories, such as badger culling or fracking, is generally impartial.
The ±«Óătv's flagship specialist programmes, particularly Countryfile and Farming Today are highly appreciated by audiences, and include a wide range of voices and opinions. She also found that news and current affairs reporting in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has an impressive depth of understanding of the issues and a breadth of voices.
However, she found that the range of voices found on specialist programmes and output in the devolved nations is not generally found on network programming for the whole UK. News and current affairs output from rural England does not appear to be reaching the UK network programmes. Â
The review also found that the ±«Óătv is giving undue weight to a small number of organisations on rural issues in its news coverage, that there is a tendency to focus on conflicts or protests, and that the extent to which the news agenda is driven by Westminster has an impact on how stories are covered and what voices are heard.  Audiences also felt that on occasion there is an unintentional urban bias in network news coverage from England.
±«Óătv Trustee and Chair of the Trust's Editorial Standards Committee Alison Hastings said:
"The 12 million people in the UK living in rural areas must have confidence that the ±«Óătv is both reflecting their lives and, where relevant, telling national stories from a rural perspective.  We welcome Heather Hancock's overall conclusion that the ±«Óătv's rural coverage is impartial and her praise for many areas of ±«Óătv programming, but the ±«Óătv must serve all audiences.  To this end it must tackle the deficit in its network coverage of rural England, and broaden the range of voices it features on rural issues on network news."
The independent report author Heather Hancock said:
"We are all rural consumers: we eat food from UK farms, we enjoy leisure time in the countryside, we value its biodiversity, landscape and tranquillity. And every so often, something far-reaching happens in the countryside: the dramatic storms and floods of 2013/14 being a case in point. This broad and deep impact of rural areas on the whole nation explains why the ±«Óătv's coverage of rural affairs matters.Â
"Overall, the ±«Óătv does a good job in reporting accurate, balanced and impartial rural stories.  However, there is room for improvement.  In England particularly, rural stories and rural lives could be more fully represented in nationwide output. I found that the ±«Óătv relied disproportionately on a small number of external bodies for input and comment.  A wider range of voices would broaden the opinions offered to audiences.  There was a tendency to focus on the environmental aspects of rural UK: this should be balanced by the economic and social dimensions.  I have made some suggestions that could help the ±«Óătv address these points, rebuilding its rural expertise particularly in network news and current affairs, and broadening the perspective it takes in reporting about rural affairs across the UK."
Heather Hancock has made a number of recommendations, including:
- Identifying an individual to take on an editorial oversight role, championing rural affairs across the whole of the ±«Óătv's output and monitoring progress;
- Increasing the measures already taken to make it easier for local and regional ±«Óătv journalists to get stories on the ±«Óătv's UK network news;
- Re-establishing the post of ±«Óătv Rural Affairs Correspondent;
- Bringing together ±«Óătv journalists and programme makers who cover rural affairs at least once a year to share ideas, experiences, contacts and collaboration opportunities; and
- Broadening the ±«Óătv's rural contacts list across a wide range of expertise.
In its response, also published today, the ±«Óătv Executive has committed to a range of steps including: identifying three correspondents in regional and local newsrooms across the country to report for network news on rural issues; widening and deepening the range of contacts on rural issues; holding annual meetings with all ±«Óătv journalists/programme-makers covering rural affairs; and appointing a senior editorial figure to take on editorial oversight of rural issues and champion them across output.
The Trust will require the Executive to report back to the Trust in six months and then in a year with an update on how the action they have agreed to take is progressing and the impact it is having on ±«Óătv output.
The review also included independent content analysis and audience research commissioned by the Trust from Loughborough University and Oxygen Brand Consulting, also published today.
Notes to Editors
- The review of coverage of rural areas in the UK is the sixth impartiality review carried out by the Trust. Previous impartiality reviews have looked at the ±«Óătv's coverage of business (published 2007); network news and current affairs coverage of the UK nations (2008, with a follow-up review published in 2010); science (2011); the events known as the 'Arab Spring' (2012) and the ±«Óătv's breadth of opinion (2013). Information about previous impartiality reviews can be found here.
- Heather Hancock was Managing Partner for Talent and Brand for Deloitte in the UK, and Deloitte's global managing director for brand and communications. Prior to joining Deloitte in 2003 she worked in the public sector, in roles including private secretary to three ±«Óătv Secretaries, accounting officer for The Millennium Commission, chief executive of a special local authority, and executive director of a regional development agency. She sat on the ±«Óătv's rural affairs committee for ten years, chairing it for several of those, and she was a member of the expert panel for the ±«Óătv Governors' review of ±«Óătv rural coverage in 2003. She was a Trustee of the Prince's Trust for twelve years to 2012, chairing its audit committee for six years. Mrs Hancock is a former Chairman of The Football League's committee on the future structure of football. In January 2013 she was appointed a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order for her services to the royal family and, in particular, her work as a trustee for the Prince's Trust.