Transparency, Beeb-style: Reject 10 in 12 complaints (and don’t say what they’re for)

JUST one complaint out of a dozen the BBC investigated was fully upheld, its first complaints bulletin has revealed – painting a picture of an organisation that rejects the vast majority of criticism.

The Corporation is being made to disclose details about complaints every fortnight after broadcasting watchdog Ofcom said it needed to be more transparent.

The first of the new complaints bulletins, published yesterday, offered the bare minimum of detail. But it was enough to throw light on why the Corporation battled so hard to keep details of its complaints a secret.

The BBC was inundated by 8,377 complaints during the two weeks between October 30 and November 12, more than 5,500 of which were about particular programmes. But it only completed investigations into 12 problem broadcasts during that period – and rejected all but two of them as groundless. It upheld one complaint – an objection to bias on Radio 4’s PM show – and partially upheld another, about an April episode of Victoria Derbyshire’s eponymous BBC2 show.

Both of them were to do with coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, although that is not made clear in the bulletin.

The level of detail in the BBC’s complaints bulletin is in stark contrast to Ofcom’s own bulletins about commercial broadcasters – including ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. Ofcom’s fortnightly report sets out precisely how many complaints each broadcaster has received for which programmes.

By contrast, the BBC’s bulletin only names programmes that have registered more than 100 complaints.

A source for the Corporation said the vast discrepancy between the number of complaints coming in and complaints being upheld was an indication that many of the objections were unjustified.