Six ways the BBC’s local digital transformation could help the broader local news eco-system

Much has been written about the BBC’s changes to local radio and digital expansion plans. Here I’d like to offer six ways the BBC could utilise its digital acceleration proposals at a local level to benefit the wider local news ecosystem.

This is really important because the BBC has enormous local standing, engagement and is seen as a go-to news source for many (and often a validation of news in terms of legitimacy in the eyes of the public).

Co-location for journalism outlets
While broadcasting has adapted post-Covid to being much more flexible about locations it tends to still need a fixed-location for a studio. This is one of the highest costs for any kind of media outlet – having a space to do the act of journalism. Particularly outside of the big cities, could the BBC be host to a media hub? Offering a co-located/co-working space for media/journalism companies. There would be benefits for the BBC in terms of having a building and studio which is busier, have access to potential studio guests ‘on tap’ from other media outlets and also if done in conjunction with a local journalism school/university could be an excellent breeding ground of future journalistic talent across digital-broadcast etc. And everyone keeps the finance department/facilities department happy with ensuring a well-utilised facility is operating and being used. Could these become ‘anchor buildings’ in helping creative sectors in many places across the country, particularly outside of the biggest cities where many newsrooms are struggling with having a physical presence post-Covid, that need that one building to be the catalyst?

Collaborative journalism on a local level
Within the BBC’s plans there’s much talk of having more in-depth local stories told. As it stands the early signs I’ve seen in Lancashire are of more police press releases making their way online along with more Local Democracy Reporting Service stories being used. There’s an enormous opportunity for the BBC to take inspiration from the likes of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (who they worked with on the Thurrock Council/Panorama expose) and look to dig into the big issues on a local/regional level. It’s likely there will be tip-offs just sat there at local/regional/BBC local level that are struggling to find the time to be worked on (particularly outside of the major metro titles and areas). Having a facility to, or amplifying the Bureau’s existing networks and work, could be a way to do this. And an investigation that comes out all across BBC radio, TV, digital AND on a local media outlets homepage/print edition/social channels if applicable could be incredibly powerful.

Take aggregation seriously
The BBC is part of the plumbing of the Internet. Together there’s 36.8m visitors to BBC properties (Comscore, August 2023) and we know how powerful the BBC News homepage can be (it sees large surges in audience when big news happens, many of the top searches for a news incident will have ‘bbc news’ somewhere at the start of end related to the incident). I know from personal experience how strong the BBC’s aggregation abilities can be, from linking out via their transfer gossip blog (and providing much-needed audience to excellent football reporting) through to their ‘from other local news sites’ aggregation boxes which appear to be slipping further and further down the page. There’s a skill to doing good round-ups and aggregation and the BBC can be best in class here, some ideas could be:

– Utilise their local index pages (which sometimes struggle for refreshed volume as that’s not the BBC’s game) to showcase more content from other local digital publishers

– Think about running their ‘what the papers say’ round-ups (regularly in the most-read on BBc News) more often and about specific topics which are making the headlines

– Making ‘from other local news sites’ more prominent on individual stories and trying to make it more relevant to that specific topic (it’s often very random!)

– City updates, see the great work the likes of Michael Macleod are doing in Edinburgh, he’s driving a significant amount of traffic to news sites in and around Edinburgh by being useful and consistent. We’ve seen attempts by the BBC to link out, this is the time to get that right and be best in class for round-ups and linking to strong, original, journalism from elsewhere.

Sound clipping/audio timing
There’s some fantastic content on BBC local radio – even if they couldn’t derail Rishi in the same way they did Liz Truss – and there’s a great opportunity to utilise clipping across the BBC’s local video and audio output. I was recently very kindly on a BBC Lancs show as we spoke about the Big PNE Sleep Out we’re doing at Deepdale in November, it was a good segment and we looked to utilise it on social channels/on the hyperlocal site I founded and across partners who are taking part in the Sleep Out. But you’d need to know the exact time we were on the show, and then try to translate that into ‘from 0:00’ timer on iPlayer/BBC Sounds to find the clip, download a Chrome plugin to record the clip, and then put it onto your own channels. How can the BBC open up this local radio content to make it more YouTube-like? This would allow other outlets to write around it (including their own), and make it easier to share the content for the general public or those involved in the shows. Even a simple ability to link to an actual ‘start time’ on a show or the shows because in the timestamp of when they went out would be a big step forward. Commercial broadcast outlets (TV and radio) seem much stronger here at ‘clipping’ and generating digital audiences – across social/on-site platforms – than the BBC does, despite the output of the BBC dwarfing everyone else.

Making more of presenters
BBC presenters appear quite marginalised by the changes, which is a shame as in many towns/cities/regions they are a big name in themselves – often with strong and engaged social followings (I’m going off the likes of Graham Liver, John Gillmore and others that I know in Lancs). Similar to the collaborative investigations approach above, can these presenters appear across multiple media outlets in terms of social? Could they guest present events for local media outlets? Could they have columns in print editions? I often think football reporters on regional titles really led the way on building social presences that drove audience, engagement for a digital audience (see Lee Ryder, James Pearce, Charles Watts, Phil Hay and many others) could the BBC super-charge what local presenters do with social media, in conjunction with other media outlets, and create something really special?

Run pilots on expanding the Local Democracy Reporting Service
The scheme – which sees BBC funded reporters in local newsrooms of all shapes and sizes across the country – has helped to bring dozens upon dozens of stories to readers each day across not just local news and hyperlocal sites but the BBC itself. It’s a real collaboration and strengthens local journalism in this country. There’s been calls to extend the scheme to shining a light on other bodies, for example going further with health reporting, or courts. It would be fascinating to see the BBC, particularly in the areas where it says it’s launching a dedicated online service for the first time (Bradford, Wolverhampton, Sunderland and Peterborough) to trial some kind of courts-reporting service. This could focus on magistrates’ court as Crown tends to be well covered by local news media staff, freelancers and agencies but magistrates’ is often where very local life happens and a lot of stories start life. But it’s small gains and high volume, similar to the starting point of local government coverage in a digital news landscape.

There’s lots of stumbling blocks with digital transformations but I hope the above present some food for thought on how the BBC can play a part in the local digital news eco-system and use its unique position to help local digital journalism more broadly.

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