The funding of BBC Monitoring was the subject of a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Scope of the inquiry
The Committee will hold a short inquiry to examine the implications for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the BBC's plans to reduce funding for BBC Monitoring from 2017. The Committee is expected to take oral evidence on the afternoon of Tuesday 11 October from witnesses including representatives of the BBC and the National Union of Journalists.

A summary of the report is now available here.



It was a mistake to end Government funding for BBC Monitoring in 2013 and that change should be reversed, say MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Chair's comments:-

Chair of the Committee, Crispin Blunt MP, commented:

"BBC Monitoring is a highly regarded organisation whose work is more important than ever.

These cuts to BBC Monitoring, proposed by the BBC, are simply not in the interest of the UK Government. They will not help the FCO improve its performance in detecting trends and undercurrents overseas that have implications for UK policy – something it notably failed to do in Libya, for instance. Given the vast increase in social media output, this kind of monitoring is more important than ever.

Other countries with similar operations fund them from central Government. The principal benefit of the output of BBC Monitoring is better-informed Government policy, which is why the Government should fund it, not the licence fee payer. It's notable that in the face of these cuts, government departments are in the process of recreating this capability internally. This should not be necessary and we should be bolstering the work of BBC Monitoring, not cutting it."



The Foreign Affairs Committee says BBC Monitoring is vital to the FCO's scrutiny of developing events across the world. Highly valued by the Government, the service translates and analyses news and information from freely available media sources in 100 different languages and covering 150 countries.


The full report may be found here.

"Birt-ism screwed us over so well that now we don't train the industry as we once did, nor do we innovate (in the technological sense) as we once did. Our 'home-made programmes' rarely entertain the population as they once did, and those that do achieve great ratings are 'stolen' from us by the lure of greater riches."

Maybe the BBC doesn't see itself as the "jewel in the crown" any more? Is that a significant part of the problem?

Alex Spence writes in "Politico" web-site, here,

"UK’s eyes and ears on the world under threat", and

"Downsizing the BBC is ‘a short-sighted and stupid thing to do,’ says British admiral."