Press Gazette readers have had their say in response to a story highlighting the latest data on outside earnings for BBC news journalists (Q3 2022).
AndyR writes: Am I reading this correctly – that the BBC is spending UK licence fee income on digital content aimed at an overseas audience? Unless this is part of a ring-fenced World Service budget I can’t see that this is justified. But hardly surprising since the licence-fee funded BBC News Channel is to be folded into a more globally focused service seemingly aimed at bored businessmen in their hotels.
Pete writes: Have I stumbled on a Murdoch title? I know it’s in vogue to knock the BBC but I would have thought Press Gazette would be above such cheap shot.
Moonlighting is, to my mind, something that is kept from employers and typically done in secret (hence the name); but you are using numbers actually supplied by their employer. That they have an “outside earnings register” implies this is the norm and accepted. Where I worked we had rules in place governing freelance work, it certainly wasn’t deemed moonlighting if it was reported in advance and agreed by the publisher.
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Our report of tabloid veterans launching new websites also provoked comment: MacKenzie, Murdoch and the hunt for tabloid gold in the digital era.
Pete writes: I know the theme is taking one country’s conversations and transplanting them into another, but the most successful example of that seems to be the desperation to replicate the polarisation of US politics. Out of all the US exports, this one is the least welcome.
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Q: Why don’t tabloids successful in one market work in others? I’m guessing the parochial nature of tabloid news – regional even national politics and local celebs “exclusives” don’t travel well (soap & TV stars not having cache in other markets, heck even sports don’t resonate from market to market). If tabloid-type news is mostly free to air via multiple sources and there is little to no loyalty to their brand (sceptical whether people on social media even notice the source?), it’s not monetizable through subscription, it’s stuck in the ad’s eyeballs scenario and that’s been proven to be a race to the bottom (see: google, facebook, insta etc).
Also the UK does not have a left-leaning bias in the media – individual journalists themselves might but they dance to their owners’ tunes Kelvin and they are predominantly right-wing not left. Look I’m all in favour of those pandering to the right throwing bad money after worse at what they, time and again, in defiance of the facts, refer to an underserved audience, but as we’ve seen with Fox in the US, GB News/Talk TV here, latterly everywhere with Twitter, whilst there are rules about allowing freedom of speech etc, there aren’t requirements for advertisers to allocate budgets to environments they aren’t comfortable with, and with limited subscription appeal I can’t see this having legs. I’m in the target demographic and I certainly wouldn’t read it (40++, centrist, white male).
Fair play to Kelvin though, he’s got previous with launching and selling on, so I wouldn’t bet on him starting and flipping this…
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