The Stage

BBC should focus on new ideas, audience research shows

Published Tuesday 18 December 2007 at 14:50 by Matthew Hemley

Audiences want the BBC to develop more drama series in-house rather than ‘buying them in’ and are worried reality shows and celebrity-based programmes are dominating the Corporation’s output, new research has revealed.

Licence fee payers questioned by the BBC Trust, the Corporation’s governing body, have claimed that the broadcaster needs to take ‘responsible’ risks in areas such as developing new drama and talent.

They have also raised concerns that TV is being dominated by “big entertainment shows, ratings chasers, celebrity and reality TV” and claim that the BBC has succumbed to this trend.

Viewers felt that these shows ‘crowded out’ other genres, in particular serious drama, and that the BBC should be striving to provide more of an alternative to them.

In a letter to BBC director general Mark Thompson, BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons said: ‘The biggest single desire of everyone we surveyed is for the BBC to provide television programmes that are fresh or demonstrate new ideas.’

He added: ‘It seems that, although there is more choice of channels across UK television as a whole, people nonetheless perceive there to be less choice of programmes and they are keen to see the BBC give greater prominence to the range of its high quality work.’

The research ties in with the publication of the trust’s ‘purpose remits’, which set out how the BBC should meet the six public purposes laid out for it in the Royal Charter.

To help the trust decide on these remits, it consulted audiences on how they feel the BBC is performing.

Out of 4,500 adults questioned, 72% felt it was essential for the BBC to have ‘lots of fresh and new ideas’, but only 51% agreed the Corporation was meeting this goal.

Elsewhere in the research, audiences singled out Doctor Who as a good example of what the BBC does best.