60,000 complaints over BBC’s Election coverage
THE BBC received more than 60,000 complaints over its General Election coverage, according to a Corporation insider.
News and politics shows including Question Time, The Andrew Marr Show and BBC Breakfast were among the targets of viewer criticism, with many of the objections about anti-Tory bias.
The BBC source believes the flood of complaints, said to be unprecedented and a massive increase on previous Elections, could lead to a fundamental rethink over the way in which the Corporation covers politics.
The Mail on Sunday has been able to verify that there were approximately 45,000 complaints over Election coverage detailed in reports published by the BBC.
However, a BBC spokesman did not dispute that the source’s higher figure of more than 60,000 was correct, although he declined to give an exact figure. In contrast, the BBC’s 2015 Election coverage attracted 5,000 complaints, while the 2017 poll received 7,000, according to the BBC insider.
Programmes covering politics on
December 13, the day after the Conservatives won an 80- seat majority, were also considered as part of the campaign coverage, and the complaint figures take into account these shows.
Andrew Marr’s interview in which he repeatedly interrupted Boris Johnson on Sunday, December 1 received 12,000 complaints alone.
More than 900 viewers also took issue with Andrew Neil’s on- air challenge to Mr Johnson a week before polling day, when he publicly criticised the Prime Minister for refusing him an interview. Mr
Neil’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn attracted 1,300 complaints over bias against the Labour leader.
And 15,000 viewers took exception to BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg claiming on the eve of the poll that the results of postal voting were already making ‘grim’ reading for Labour.
In an email to staff the day after polling, BBC director-general Lord Hall admitted the Corporation had made mistakes with some of its coverage but had ‘held up its hands’.