MORI Finds BBC Public Consultation "Not A Reliable Guide To Public Opinion"

A MORI report commissioned by major UK commercial broadcasters has shown today that the BBC's public consultation on its proposed new digital services is "clearly not representative of the public in any meaningful sense and cannot be considered a reliable measurement of public opinion."

The BBC is required under its Charter and Agreement to "demonstrate public value or appeal to licence payers" in order to justify licence fee funding for its proposed new digital services. In response to this requirement the BBC undertook a public consultation exercise last year and commissioned two other pieces of market research.

The BBC's submission to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), seeking the Secretary of State's approval for the new services, states "the public consultation on these new services demonstrates conclusively that these services would in general be highly valued by licence payers". However MORI claims that "examination of the published details of the BBC's methodology and the responses strongly suggest that it should not be taken as a reliable guide to public opinion on the BBC's proposed new services".

MORI's analysis of the BBC public consultation finds:

• The public consultation was based on a self-selecting group prompted to respond either by broadcast trails on BBC services or via the internet through the BBC's own website;
• The 6,768 reported responses represent a response rate of only 0.014% of the UK adult population aged 16 years and over (47.4 million)
• The responses submitted on behalf of organisations rather than individuals were not separated out in the analysis of responses. According to MORI " this renders the final percentage figures effectively meaningless";
• The final 'sample' was "considerably skewed" with, for example, 72% of respondents being male, compared with 48% of the UK adult population aged 16 years and over;
• MORI states that it is "quite likely that the responses were under representing those who may not be able to afford to go digital" - the very audience whose responses are important in this evaluation, given the BBC's highlighting of "two specific reasons why the BBC needs to change and improve the quality of its existing digital channels" in its proposals to the Secretary of State: "As an incentive for analogue switch-off" and "To offer channels, and thus more choice, for those who cannot afford pay television but will be forced to go digital".
• Neither the BBC's public consultation booklet nor questionnaire address the two specific reasons cited in its submission to DCMS as to why the BBC needs to change its existing digital channels;
• Some individual questions were found to be "meaningless" and "badly designed" and the questionnaire overall was found to be of "limited worth".
• Respondents were asked whether they think the new services would be "a valuable addition", but not whether, in the light of monetary costs and opportunity costs, they actually support the introduction of such services. However, the BBC's submission to DCMS portrays the questions as having asked precisely that;
• The accompanying BBC explanatory booklet may have misled respondents by implying that the new services will be paid for by the most recent licence fee increase together with commercial revenue and cost savings, rather than a rise in the licence fee in real terms for each of the next six years;
• Therefore the responses to the questionnaire should be presumed to have been made only with regard to the acceptability of the new channels as such, only on the presumption that they will be "free" - not only at the point of use but effectively by not requiring any increase in licence fee, and without mention of any opportunity cost in not pursuing alternative possibilities.

Overall, MORI found that: "the nature of the BBC's consultation means that the respondents as a group are insufficiently representative of the general public to 'demonstrate conclusively' anything about the opinions of licence payers in general…We see little evidence that the BBC's consultation exercise is adequate to support the conclusions drawn from it and submitted to DCMS in its Pro Forma application for approval of New Public Services."

MORI also found that the second survey conducted by BMRB appears to have been reported incompletely by the BBC. If this second survey used the questions presented in the BBC's public consultation exercise, the same problems would apply.

Within the BBC's application to DCMS, Caroline Thomson's (Director of Public Policy, BBC) letter seems to misrepresent the content of some of the BMRB survey questions. In relation to each of the new channels, for instance, the letter suggests that it presents the percentage who 'agree' or 'agree strongly' "that the BBC is right to launch" each service. That was not what respondents were asked in each case. For the five proposed new radio channels, for example, respondents were asked whether each was "the sort of service that the BBC should be providing", which might implicitly assume an ideal world and avoid the question of cost implications of whether the BBC is "right to launch" the channel.

MORI also found that a BBC survey of Young Afro-Caribbean adults was unrepresentative of the adult Afro-Caribbean population and was carried out in three cities alone. MORI states of the research: "the sample is at best representative not of all African-Caribbean's within the age range but of urban young African-Caribbean's living in three particular cities".

Technical details

MORI was commissioned by the following broadcasters to provide an independent evaluation of the BBC's assessment of public reaction as presented to the DCMS in support of their proposed new services: Artsworld, BSkyB, Commercial Radio Companies Association, Fox Kids, Nickelodeon UK and MTV Networks Europe.

Within its critique, MORI clearly states that "MORI is neither for nor against the BBC, neither for nor against the independent broadcasters or neither for nor against the proposed new digital channels. Our sole objective has been to evaluate, objectively and without any partiality, the research that has been carried out."