The High Court is hearing a legal challenge against broadcasting regulator Ofcom over its decision not to investigate complaints about BBC’s Brexit coverage.
David Keighley, head of media monitoring group News-Watch, has accused the BBC of “systemic failure” to balance views in its reporting of Brexit-related issues.
The case centres on three complaints Keighley made to Ofcom between July 2020 and February 2021, alleging the BBC lacked due impartiality and favoured pro-EU voices.
Thomas Roe KC, representing Keighley, told the court the complaints address the BBC’s general output rather than specific programmes, which he described as a “more serious problem”.
Keighley’s first complaint followed his analysis of 14,000 hours of BBC programming between 1999-2020, concluding the broadcaster had “seriously under-reported and misrepresented the case for withdrawal from the EU”.
A second complaint was submitted on October 19, 2020, focusing on a “random” period between July 6 and 13, 2020.
In his third complaint, Keighley alleged that “BBC output generally and not just news and political output continues to favour, unduly, pro-EU and anti-Brexit opinion and to seriously under-report pro-Brexit and anti-EU perspectives”.
The BBC, which is also facing bias accusations for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, has rejected these complaints.
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Ofcom has defended its decision not to investigate, stating that monitoring general output falls outside its jurisdiction.
Jessica Boyd KC, representing Ofcom, told the court that the regulator receives tens of thousands of complaints about broadcasters annually.
She argued that investigating the BBC’s general output for impartiality would require examining such a large sample size that it would be “disproportionately costly of Ofcoms time and resources”.
Ofcom maintains that the responsibility for ensuring due impartiality across general output lies with the BBC Board.
A pro-EU campaigner slamming Brexit
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The regulator has only been required to oversee the BBC since March 2017, Boyd noted in written submissions.
The two sides clashed over how impartiality should be measured in BBC’s coverage.
Keighley’s approach involved counting the number of pro-Brexit contributions against pro-EU ones.
However, Ofcom agreed with the BBC’s assessment that this method was “divorced from analysis of the context and nature of the programming in question”.
The regulator stated this counting approach “is not on its own capable of establishing a breach of due impartiality requirements”.
Thomas Roe KC argued that Ofcom’s March 2022 decision not to investigate “fails to engage with the substance of the complaints”.
The hearing at the High Court continues, with Ofcom defending its approach to regulating broadcast impartiality.
Jessica Boyd KC emphasised that Ofcom’s role is to enforce due impartiality at the level of individual programmes or series, describing the regulator’s conclusion as “well-reasoned and sound”.
She clarified Ofcom’s position on broadcaster perspectives, telling the court: “Broadcasters are permitted to have a certain perspective as long as alternative views are met. Ofcom is charged with evaluating that.”
The regulator maintains it does not require broadcasters to be “completely neutral on matters of public policy, industrial or political controversy”.
