Editor of 5 News Debbie Ramsay has called out “snobbery” about her programme from others in the media but said its figures “speak for themselves”.
Viewership for 5 News grew by 4% in 2024 to a 3.4% audience share between 5pm and 6pm on weekdays, according to broadcast data body Barb.
ITN, which produces 5 News as well as ITV News and Channel 4 News, said this made it the best year for the programme since 2018.
Ramsay joined 5 News in September 2023 and told Press Gazette this month its growth could be attributed to a clear sense of audience and a consistent mix of “light and shade” in each programme.
The 5 News audience, Ramsay said, is more working class than other broadcasters and is most interested in domestic news.
“They are really into their local news…. I feel like we do local news but on a national level.”
Viewership is “growing in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the North East and, unusually, also London,” she said. “That’s really, really unusual.”
A large proportion of the viewership are women aged over 44, and the average age of the audience is 61.
Viewers are “likely to be Brexiteers”, she said. “Very strong opinions around immigration, the NHS, the Rwanda scheme — which many thought was a good thing.
“So it’s quite challenging for us. We have these discussions in the newsroom every day, of — we are making news for them, we’re not making news for us.
“Still, we have a responsibility as a public service broadcaster to cover all the angles and present the news to them, but also we’re not making them feel bad for having an opinion that is different to large swathes of the country or the media.
“It’s really leaning into that and giving them the tools and letting them hear from people they want to hear from.”
For the 60-strong team of journalists, Ramsay said this can be “challenging, especially for some of the younger people in the team who might not have the same views as older people in the team, but it’s all about coming together.”
‘Most important thing’ at 5 News is ‘making news that people want to watch’
Ramsay said 5 News puts a deliberate focus on what its audience wants, rather than what the newsroom thinks they ought to be interested in.
“It’s really easy to end up making news that is award-winning that nobody watches or not that many people watch, or not as many people watch, or focusing on stories which you know — and I’m not saying they’re not worthwhile stories — that your peers are going to recognise. But actually, are they for the audience?”
She acknowledged that “of course you want to be recognised by your peers”. But she said: “There can be, I feel, perhaps a bit of a snobbery, sometimes, towards what we do with 5 News and Channel 5.
“But the figures speak for themselves. And that’s the most important thing for me — that we are making news that people want to watch.”
Part of that, Ramsay said, involves showcasing the UK “in all its glory, warts and all… We report the good news as well and we give the audience a variety of stories. So it’s not all doom and gloom — it’s not all heavy.”
She said Dan Walker, the former BBC Breakfast presenter who has presented the daily 5 News bulletin since June 2022, exemplified the broadcaster’s approach.
“He’s got such a personable style, in-person and through the screen, [and] I think it’s really about letting the audience know that — yes, acknowledge this is bad, but you need to know about it.”
She said: “We really like to make sure we’re giving people the knowledge and the flavour, but actually not leaving them down in the dumps.”
[Read more: Dan Walker on Nicola Bulley scoop, Twitter, fame and the future of 5 News]
Debbie Ramsay on GB News and Donald Trump
Despite some similarities in the audience profile described by Ramsay, she said she does not see opinion-led GB News as a competitor.
“Their slant is quite obviously skewed,” she said. “We’re not quite obviously skewed, and the viewers tell us that all the time — the reason why they watch us is because we’re not patronising them or forcing an opinion or a view down their throats.”
She later added: “It’s when you’re trying to put a slant on something that you could lose the trust of the audience”.
Covering Donald Trump is “a real challenge for us”, Ramsay said.
“It’s really dangerous, I think, for all of the media to give credence to some things which are questionable, especially without context. That’s why it drives me mad at the minute when I see a snap of something [Trump] said — I’m like: ‘That’s not appropriate, because there’s no context around it’…
“That’s taken quite a lot [of time] and has been quite challenging, especially with having to truth-check things and the half-truths and the rest of it.”
Prior to taking on her job at 5 News in 2023 Ramsay spent a year commissioning youth current affairs programming for Channel 4, and before that she had been at the BBC for 16 years, much of which was spent in editing roles for Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra’s Newsbeat.
Although the audiences “are at different ends of the spectrum” — the Newsbeat audience is mostly aged between 16 and 34 — Ramsay said both were “underserved”.
“We were very much about, when I was editor there, not patronising people, explaining things well and simply and keeping people entertained and educated…
“I like the challenge of successfully reaching people that most of the other broadcasters say they want to reach.”
5 News still small on social but growing
By Ramsay’s own admission, 5 News’ digital channels are “relatively small still”, but they are growing.
“Sometimes, when your linear is going really well, you feel less of the urgency of digital. Because that’s the way it will go — we’re not under any illusion, we need to future-proof.”
ITN says 5 News social content had “more than 57.8 million views” in 2024 and its Tiktok account has built “substantial engagement from a growing group of 35 to 44-year-olds in particular”.
When she arrived at 5 News one of the first changes she made to its social media output was to stop posting captioned images (“we’re all about video”, she said) and breaking news.
“We’re not trying to compete with the BBC, or even Channel 4 or ITV… so very rarely, now, will we put breaking news on [social] unless it’s something really, really big, and then we might. Because you’re going to go to the BBC for that.”
On Youtube, where Ramsay said hashtags “are really important”, 5 News has focused its output on only doing “the trending story of the day… if we have a different take on that” than other broadcasters, because reformatting footage for the platform takes time and “we can’t do everything because we’re only a small team”.
Ramsay said she wants 5 News to be a contender amid the content free-for-all on social media platforms.
“We want to be in the mix if you’re picking and choosing, which is what audiences like to do now — not just younger audiences…
“You need to be making the best content and the most interesting content so that they can pick you in amongst their mix of news content.”
[Read more: 5 News editor steps down — Cait Fitzsimons on five years running the news at 5]
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