THE BBC continued its run as “Tory TV” in July, as the BBC pointed to “editorial judgement” as its explanation for a stark lack of SNP appearances.
Research by the Sunday National has found that the SNP had only 4% of guest slots on the BBC’s flagship political shows, despite surging in the polls in Scotland.
Tory politicians featured more than those from every other party put together – continuing the trend from June.
SNP depute leader Keith Brown said it revealed “an anti-SNP bias at the very heart of the BBC”.
Newsnight was the worst show in terms of balance, featuring 61 Tories to just 20 from Labour and three from the SNP.
The Brexit Party also had more slots than Scotland’s biggest part, with five.
The SNP’s Brown said: “In June, the BBC had morphed into Tory TV. In July, these BBC current affairs programmes gave over 40% of all guests slots to the Tories who are struggling to get 30% in the polls.
“These latest totals still reveal an anti-SNP bias at the very heart of the BBC.
“For a party consistently hitting 40% in the polls, 4% of all guest slots for SNP representatives is indefensible and insulting.
“Month after month, the vast majority of BBC network current affairs output leaves audiences in Scotland underrepresented.
“When will the BBC management sit up and take notice that their political output is badly broken and needs fixed.
“With all the public money at its disposal, BBC bosses must overcome their Westminster centric Tory obsession and provide a fresh news and current affairs suite of programmes that meets the complexity required by the four nations of the UK.”
July marked a slight improvement on dismal June figures for SNP appearances, with just 2% of slots on the channel going to the party last month.
The figures are for the The Andrew Marr Show, Question Time, Newsnight, Politics Live and the Victoria Derbyshire show.
Asked about the imbalance in numbers, A BBC spokesperson said: “Counting guest appearances is not the measure of impartiality. We cover stories as they arise, and use our editorial judgement about who we should hear from depending on the news agenda.”
The BBC has previously cited the Tory leadership election as a reason for a higher percentage of Tory appearances on its shows in recent months and so, with Boris Johnson now elected, a balancing out should be expected in August.
July was the first month since their inception that Change UK – The Independent Group were not on the BBC airwaves at all.
The Brexit party increased its monthly total from seven to nine, with the DUP and Ukip not featuring at all.
Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru, which, like the SNP, is experiencing a significant bounce in the polls, did not appear on any of the five flagship UK political shows.
Question Time is on break, meaning there was only one edition of that show recorded as part of the figures.
That featured one Tory MP, one Labour MP, Green MP, and two other guests.
Victoria Derbyshire’s show featured the highest amount of SNP representation – accounting for almost half of overall appearances.
There were 14 Tory and nine Labour appearances, with four for the SNP, one for the LibDems, two for the Brexit Party and four others.
Politics Live for the most part featured non-political party guests, but had a paltry three SNP slots. That was the same amount as the LibDems, and well below 15 for Labour and 25 for the Tories. Recess also affected Andrew Marr’s show, but on the Sundays beforehand, there were four Tories, two from Labour and one from the LibDems. No other party featured.
Newsnight’s dismal performance on balance comes only weeks after it was branded a “total embarrassment” over its figures for the first half of the year.
Since the National began recording the figures in February and up until June, almost three-fifths (59%) of politicians on the show had been from the Tory party.
Brown at the time hit out at the show’s record, particularly over the “embarrassing” obsession with The Independent Group – which has vanished from their shows in July.
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