BBC still dominates as news consumption shifts from TV to online

Good morning. Crossover! For the first time, more British people tell Ofcom in its annual report that they get their news via the internet (71 per cent) than television (70 per cent, including on-demand). OK, it is a margin of error shift, but nonetheless: for the first time since the 1960s, when TV overtook radio for the first time, TV is not number one.

For good and for ill, the ability to shape and curate an image for the TV era has been the essential prerequisite to political success for party leader. We haven’t yet, I think, seen the UK’s first truly online politician, but they surely aren’t far off from leading a major party.

Meet the new boss, they’re just the same as the old boss

Where are elections in the UK fought and won as we transition from a democracy where the principal source of news has shifted from the TV to online? Answer: still the BBC, it turns out.

A similar pattern holds across all modes — what’s the number one way people get news on the radio? The BBC. What’s the number one way people get it on TV? The BBC. And much of the news people consume on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok or wherever is what I think of as “BBC-derived”: the original source, whether it is a share, a screengrab or a meme, is the BBC when you trace it back.

Equally importantly, that holds regardless of how you vote: the overall media diet of voters in the 2024 general election — split in the chart below by Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Reform UK and Green voters (you can toggle by voter group) — is quite varied, but they do all have a huge helping of news from the BBC.

There are two things that are worth noting here, I think. The first is that the BBC is going to continue to be far and away the most important single media organisation for shaping elections and getting a party’s message across for some time. The second is that the UK is incredibly fortunate to have it: its dominant presence across the country’s different political tribes means that we can, at least, have a decent number of agreed facts even if we don’t have many agreed conclusions.

Now try this

This week, I mostly listened to Max Richter’s terrific new record, In A Landscape, while writing my column.

Top stories today

• Feeling’s mutual | Ministers will explore mutualising the BBC as part of a review of funding options for the UK national broadcaster ahead of licence fee talks expected to begin next year, culture secretary Lisa Nandy said. That would in effect mean giving licence-fee payers a more direct stake in the BBC.

• Capital spending lags behind | England has spent almost £40bn less than peer countries on health assets and infrastructure since the 2010s, stunting NHS modernisation and exacerbating care backlogs, an official review into the health service will say this week.

• Brownites and Blairites called in | Keir Starmer is stepping up the hiring of figures from the New Labour era as he turns to trusted party veterans who served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown between 1997 and 2010. These include economist Dan Corry, the former head of the No 10 policy unit under Brown, and Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff in Downing Street.

• Uniting unions and business | Starmer will promise to end “cheap and vindictive attacks” on the trade union movement as he pledges to work with businesses and unions to “rewire” the British economy. 

• All fired app | Elon Musk will be asked by the UK parliament to give evidence about the operations of social media platform X under plans drawn up by a leading contender to become chair of a key panel of MPs.