The impact of interventionist regulation in reshaping news agendas: A comparative analysis of public and commercially funded television journalism

Abstract

In this article we draw on a specific case study – the re-regulation of BBC political reporting in the nations and regions in the UK post-devolution – to compare the BBC’s interventionist, public service framework with the ‘light touch’ regime of commercial broadcasting. We carried out a content analysis of BBC Television News (where issues of accuracy and impartiality are regulated by the BBC Trust), and three commercially funded channels (where programme content is entirely regulated by Ofcom) before and after an editorial intervention by the BBC Trust. We found that the BBC improved the balance and accuracy of its television news coverage whereas commercial broadcasters continued to overlook or misrepresent the reality of devolved politics in the UK. While it can be difficult to demonstrate empirically how regulation can enhance media content compared to a ‘light touch’ system – as our study found – we suggest that the impact of regulatory interventions should be more central to journalism studies internationally.