BBC is £60m in black but faces viewer criticism

Daniel Farey-Jones, brandrepublic.com, 03 July 2007, 02:35PM

LONDON - The BBC has generated a surplus of £60.7m for the financial year ended March 31, but has been criticised by the BBC Trust for lack of innovation.

According to viewer research carried out by the BBC Trust, audiences feel the BBC should be more innovative, although approval of BBC Three and Four is growing.

The corporation's annual income grew from £4.23bn in 2005/6, when it retained a £3.6m surplus, to £4.42bn this year. Its income from the licence fee grew from £3.1bn to £3.24bn.

The annual report confirms the executive directors waived their annual bonuses. Mark Thompson, the director-general, was paid a total of £788,000 this year compared with £770,000 last year.

The trust reports that BBC One and BBC Two have done well against a competitive background, continuing to appeal to very large numbers; while the reach and appeal of BBC Three and Four is growing.

The trust acknowledged that the distinctiveness of Radio 1 and 2 is of particular concern for commercial operators, and pledged to consider whether the stations could do more to clarify the sources of their distinctiveness and their contribution to the BBC's public purposes, when it finalises their remits.

In a comment that may concern regional newspaper publishers, the trust highlighted audience research which showed that only a minority of people agreed that the BBC catered equally for all parts of the UK, and the feeling was stronger the further away from London people lived. It said it would take this into account in its work on licence fee reprioritisation.

UK unique user numbers for bbc.co.uk have increased from 12.3m in 2005/6 to 14.8m this year and global unique users are up from 24.3m to 28.3m. The trust noted that news was by far the most popular section on the site.