New DG tells staff he will build a ‘sat nav around bias’
Matt Brittin has unveiled a plan to use data to improve BBC impartiality.
On his second day in the role, the director general told staff in a company-wide call that the broadcaster is exploring building a “sat nav around bias”, where it would use technology to analyse news and other content to establish patterns in output, and work out how often certain words or types of contributors appear.
He did not set out the details of how the tech would be build or deployed, according to a report in Deadline.
His statement suggests the issue of impartiality – which was Tim Davie’s priority during his tenure as DG – remains a major focus of the corporation’s leadership. The scrutiny on the BBC’s news coverage has ramped up this year after major editorial scandals over Gaza and Donald Trump.
The former Google EMEA leader further set out the need to improve and invest in iPlayer and online services.
“Our products iPlayer, Sport, and Sounds aren’t doing a good enough job for the content that we’re all making,” he said, pointing to being served the very first episode of long-running show Silent Witness, rather than the latest series.
“That’s no criticism of the teams. We’ve just funded content at the expense of the platform, and so we need those products to work better,” he said.
Brittin acknowledged the difficulty of making such improvements at a time when the BBC is making major cuts to save £500m over the next two years.
“We’ve spent quite a lot of money, including cash reserves, to try to make the content offer as big as possible coming into this charter.
“That’s one of the reasons we haven’t got the money we need to sustain the size and shape of the organisation,” he said.
His call came the day after he sent a company-wide email urging staff to “experiment more bravely” in a bid to “reinvent” the broadcaster to be “simpler, faster and more connected with audiences”.
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