Articles printed in The Eye are written by a staff of contributors and edited by the multi-award successful former BBC information and present affairs reporter, Phil Parry.
The largest broadcaster in Wales has confronted large criticism from senior workers over the low high quality of its programmes, with one worker declaring that working there’s “embarrassing”, it has emerged.
One other former senior govt with BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) advised The Eye: “The programmes are scraping the underside of the barrel. They’re meant to serve the nation, however the BBC isn’t doing so as a result of the standard is so low”.
A workers member on the large company, declared: “Lots of people assume it’s embarrassing to work right here. On a regular basis we’re being urged to make programmes which increase Wales, however we solely appear to enchantment to the bottom widespread denominator”.
Additional issues are revealed by us, in a narrative about one in all its presenters, in two weeks time.
Among the many programmes which have been attacked are dramas, and the information protection (which is claimed to not mirror Welsh life totally), in addition to many transmissions on the one all-Wales English-language radio station, BBC Radio Wales (RW).
These issues come at a troublesome time for the large broadcaster, as it’s going through huge multi-media competitors, and there’s scrutiny as by no means earlier than in regards to the output in a devolved Wales.
Final August the media watchdog Ofcom in a report entitled: Media Nations: 2022, proclaimed in regards to the viewers habits within the earlier 12 months: “Time spent watching TV from broadcasters in Wales fell by 12.6% in comparison with 2020, the most important proportional lower of any UK nation, illustrating that the long-term development of decline in general viewing of broadcasters’ content material, seen over the previous decade, has resumed”.
Within the years earlier than that, immense concern was additionally expressed in regards to the content material of on-air programming. A Welsh Authorities (WG) minister on the time, used social media to sentence RW saying the breakfast programme “simply can’t ship”, highlighting his earlier criticism that it was not a “severe information programme”, and his demand for extra ‘difficult’ journalism.
Lee Waters MS, the then Deputy Economic system Minister in Wales wrote on Twitter about the final election: “I feel Radio Wales could be higher off placing occasion leaders on a phone-in. The brand new fashion Breakfast programme simply can’t ship the kind of powerful interview an election marketing campaign calls for”.
Prior to now, Mr Waters has mentioned publicly he’s apprehensive by what has occurred and that there must be ‘severe’ in addition to ‘difficult’ journalism at breakfast time on RW.
He objected, too, to the choice to drop the RW programme, Good Morning Wales (GMW) programme. Mr Waters quoted approvingly a name for “…severe, difficult journalism and persistently high-quality radio programmes which make politicians nervous…”
He has tweeted to BBC CW after the schedule together with ‘Breakfast with Claire Summers‘ was introduced, which changed GMW: “Actually involved about this – completely nothing towards Claire, however loads towards journal format. We’d like agenda-setting information & scrutiny on this slot. You’re a nationwide public service broadcaster. The place else are we going to get it?”.
The objections of Mr Waters had been then adopted by the WG, which has expressed concern on the modifications to Ofcom – which is the exterior regulator of the BBC’s tv, radio and on-demand programmes.
It mentioned: “We really feel that as a public service broadcaster, with an obligation underneath its newest constitution to mirror the nations, that they’ve an obligation to supply severe information and scrutiny. Simply as BBC Scotland and BBC community do”.
Mr Waters (himself a former producer on GMW) mentioned the modifications meant there could be “no severe information programme” broadcast at breakfast time.
There has additionally been criticism that the earlier controversial Editor of RW, Colin Paterson, relied on doubtful celeb presenters. After we reported a number of years in the past that offended listeners had contacted The Eye as soon as it emerged the programme of singing star and broadcaster Aled Jones was immediately dropped from the airwaves with RW, got here information of a really totally different kind.
On November 4 in 2017 we confirmed how new schedules had been about to be printed by the BBC, however the fashionable Sunday programme of Mr Jones didn’t seem. On the time the BBC advised The Eye, that they did “make modifications to when programmes run”. Nonetheless it transpired that the Songs of Reward presenter wouldn’t be on the airwaves in any respect on the BBC, whereas the broadcaster investigated alleged inappropriate behaviour greater than a decade earlier. The singer and TV host from Anglesey, who discovered fame on the age of 12 together with his prime 5 Christmas hit ‘Strolling within the Air’, mentioned he was “deeply sorry” for any upset precipitated however strongly denied any “inappropriate contact”, and a spokesman for Mr Jones mentioned that whereas the matter didn’t relate to any broadcast work, he had voluntarily agreed to not go on the BBC whereas it was investigated.
Mr Paterson’s substitute, Carolyn Hitt, faces an uphill process, as a result of she presides over a radio station which has secured record-breaking low listening figures.
Accusations of bias, too, have been levelled at BBC CW – primarily that it favours the Welsh nationalist occasion Plaid Cymru (PC).
The Director, Wales, Rhuanedd Richards, who leads the BBC CW ‘Government Groups’, is a former Chief Government (CEO) of PC, and there’s concern as effectively, in regards to the neutrality of Ms Hitt, who’s in general cost of an neutral information service. She has tweeted: “I’ve voted @UK Labour all my life however as we speak…I voted @Plaid_Cymru”, and in February 2020, she appeared as a keynote speaker at a convention of the Welsh independence organisation YesCymru (YC), and there mentioned that she was “keen to choose up the ball and run” for independence.
One story within the UK press in regards to the alleged bias of BBC CW was headlined: “Plaid Cymru’s Quiet Take Over of BBC Wales”.
Condemnation inside and with out the troubled company has additionally adopted disturbing current occasions, with the judgement of BBC CW figures questioned. It was prompted by the contentious tv information presenter Lucy Owen (who engaged in a unprecedented affair with Mr Paterson when his officers had commissioned a programme she fronted), posting footage of herself stress-free in a skimpy bikini on vacation at a palm tree-fringed seashore, whereas her viewers at residence battle to pay payments.
One former senior supervisor on the company mentioned that the remarks from her had been: “Inane, premature twaddle from the anchor presenter of flagship programmes on BBCW. One can solely speculate in regards to the editorial & reputational injury to the output. Not many licence price payers can afford excursions to the Caribbean amid the price of residing disaster”.
She has additionally used social media, to explain as a ‘disaster’ sporting odd footwear nto the workplace when she was broadcasting the lunchtime bulletin, and requested whether or not anybody would discover. Mrs Owen (who has, too, been the goal of feedback about ‘dumbing-down’ from our sources) even included for us a shocked face emoji after the remark, and following it she printed on Twitter: “Disaster over!”, as a result of a spare pair had been discovered.
But Mrs Owen may, maybe, have targeted on the BBC CW web site saying the identical day that coronavirus/Covid-19 was the largest reason behind demise in Wales that month, which many would possibly see as an actual disaster.
This was what she would have learn as an alternative of complaining about sporting odd footwear: “The mortality price rose “considerably” for a second month, to 260 deaths per 100,000 folks in Wales. It was additionally greater than twice the speed in probably the most disadvantaged areas in contrast with the least disadvantaged space”.
Mrs Owen had as effectively, tweeted over Christmas 2020 about how she had taken a visit to a seashore (at Southerndown within the Vale of Glamorgan), whereas others had been ruled by strict lockdown rules.
When she wrote this, the WG steerage on the time appeared clear sufficient: “If you’re travelling away from residence, you must journey to fulfill your Christmas bubble and return residence in the midst of 25 December...It’s best to maintain taking steps to scale back the unfold of the virus, and it will assist be sure that you get pleasure from Christmas Day as safely as potential.” Journey recommendation from South Wales Police (SWP) warned folks then about going to seashores “you shouldn’t be driving to those locations”.
She handled us, too, to a video of how she had suffered a “turkey drama” (presumably at her South Wales residence) by leaving plastic on the Christmas roast, however it can’t evaluate to the drama endured by the households to whom she broadcasted each evening with the most recent lockdown guidelines. Mrs Owen introduced on-line, as she confirmed us what had occurred: “I left a little bit of the plastic on it…”
When she was presenting on BBC Wales At the moment (WT), programme-makers used an image of Brighton Pavilion throughout protection of the beginning of the vastly vital Muslim month of Ramadan as an alternative of a mosque, and the error was then featured within the Brighton Argus.
One Twitter consumer complained: “BBC Wales displaying an image of the Brighton Pavilion and getting it confused for a mosque when speaking about Ramadan is type of f****d?”. One other wrote furiously: “Not blissful they’ve used a shot of Brighton Pavilion as if it’s a mosque (presumably)”.
For a lot of workers at BBC CW, Mr Paterson’s romance together with her represented a serious potential battle of curiosity, as a result of officers had authorised a RW programme she hosted, referred to as ‘Sunday morning with Lucy Owen’, and media executives each inside in addition to outdoors the company have advised us, that they had been apprehensive about their partnership’s potential influence on the method.
The story about it was included in a Digital Spy (DS) remark regarding RW with the message above the hyperlink saying “…the report low listening figures at Radio Wales underneath it’s (sic) present administration (had been) amplified this 12 months by criticism from former award successful reporters and presenters”.
Mrs Owen’s former paramour, Mr Paterson, has additionally been within the information for the unsuitable causes. He posted a video on Fb (FB) about how he too went to the seashore over Christmas 2020 – this time at close by Ogmore, which he mentioned was “Balmy”. But the WG guidelines on the time appeared clear sufficient: “If you’re travelling away from residence, you must journey to fulfill your Christmas bubble and return residence in the midst of 25 December...It’s best to maintain taking steps to scale back the unfold of the virus, and it will assist be sure that you get pleasure from Christmas Day as safely as potential.” Journey recommendation from South Wales Police (SWP) warned folks then about not going to seashores “you shouldn’t be driving to those locations”.
Maybe BBC CW also needs to ‘drive’ to a special place, after it confronted main criticism over the low high quality of its programmes, and that it was “embarrassing” to be an worker there…
The recollections of our Editor Phil Parry’s astonishing 39-year award-winning profession in journalism (together with 23 of them on the BBC), when there have been no complaints about high quality, as he was gripped by the uncommon neurological situation Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been launched in a serious ebook ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the ebook now!
Regrettably publication of one other ebook, nevertheless, was refused, as a result of it was to have included names.
