Oh I say! BBC in gender bias row after dedicating 93% of its Wimbledon coverage to men’s tennis
THE BBC has been urged to give a ‘higher profile’ to women’s tennis during Wimbledon this year following a complaint about gender bias in match coverage.
An angry viewer who monitored the first week of the tournament last year discovered that on one day the Corporation devoted 93 per cent of its airtime to the men’s tournament.
The complainant, who submitted a detailed breakdown of their findings, also highlighted only 48 per cent of Serena Williams’s first two matches were televised even though she was competing for a historic 21st singles grand slam.
Miss Williams did eventually go on to win Wim- bledon for the sixth time. Other findings included that during the first six days of the Championships more than 75 per cent of coverage was of men’s matches and less than 25 per cent of was of women’s.
The matter was investigated by the BBC Trust, the Corporation’s governing body and the complaint was dismissed on the grounds that BBC schedulers had the right to pick what they thought were the best matches to cover.
However the Trust admitted the disparities were ‘surprising’ and called on the BBC to ‘give a higher profile to women’s matches’. It added: ‘Viewers had every right to expect the BBC would start from the basis of equality between male and female players.’
The complainant monitored at 15 minute intervals the matches shown on BBC1, BBC2 and the BBC’s red button service across the first week of last year’s tournament.
All but one of the men’s top 16 seeds were featured on one or more occasions, but only seven of the women’s top seeds were given airtime.
BBC executives said they would take figures into account when planning for its coverage of this year’s tournament, which begins on Monday, June 27.