BBC Trust

Participants said that the media interests of people from an ethnic Chinese background tended to change between the generations, so a first generation immigrant from China might now watch anything more than sport and not necessarily watch any TV programming  that required greater language skills. Second generation Chinese people living in Wales tended to participate to a much more significant degree in the nation’s life, and would watch a much greater range of  TV output, but would still pay particular attention to anything relating to China.

Most participants considered it a key source of satisfaction that no advertisements appeared on the BBC’s TV output. They considered it wrong that the cost of the licence fee should have been fixed for such a significant period of time – and thought the cost should be linked to inflation. Some participants however wondered whether it was fair that you had to pay the same licence fee regardless of the number of people in a household.

They felt that there should be less swearing on TV - with some of the opinion that some programmes had gratuitous swearing within them. Some felt that children had little or no parental influence upon them in contemporary society and felt therefore that the BBC could be a good influence on them. Cbeebies was felt to be a good influence on young children and to lay down a foundation for future conduct.

Some disappointment was expressed that there were no ethnic Chinese presenters used by the BBC though it was good that Cbeebies had a presenter of Far Eastern ethnic origin, and that it was always good to see presenters and contributors from the Far East featured. They felt that this paucity of ethnic Chinese presenters was at odds with the situation in other countries such as Canada and Australia. There was also a feeling that there were many great stories within the ethnic Chinese community in Wales and the wider UK and that it was a shame therefore that these weren’t shared with the population at large.

Several participants agreed that quality,authority and authenticity were the hallmarks of the BBC’s productions, but that this had negative as well as positive aspects to it and some felt that, occasionally, the BBC was guilty of presenting widely held theories as fact.

Andrew Marr’s History of the World was particularly mentioned as a first class example of excellence from the BBC stable, with some participants expressing the hope that it would be made available on DVD.

They said that they loved comedy programmes such as Gavin & Stacey and wondered whether a Chinese ‘ethnic minority’ version could work for audiences - citing Citizen Khan as an excellent example in this regard.

While participants said they enjoyed drama on the BBC’s TV output, with Doctor Who and Gavin and Stacey specifically mentioned, they expressed regret that the BBC was not producing as many historical dramas as in the past. A great deal of pride was expressed that Cardiff, Newport and the south Wales area was now associated with high quality shows like Doctor Who. Call the Midwife was considered a very good drama, and a former midwife, who was present, considered it a good reflection of midwifery during the period in which it was set.

Other examples of programmes enjoyed included Frozen Planet, Merlin, Strictly Come Dancing , The One Show, Coast and Dan Snow’s historical programmes. Cash in the Attic and Bargain Hunt were also enjoyed by several participants. One participant said: “I like it when they show material about Wales. I really enjoyed The Story of Wales. The BBC should show more about Wales and its history.”

The participants were very appreciative of an edition of Question Time, which had been broadcast from Beijing, and considered that Lord Patten had been a superb panellist alongside other panellists from the Chinese Government and in front of an audience drawn from Beijing. They also praised the edition of Question Time which had been broadcast from Russia.

The BBC’s programmes  were thought generally to be of a very high quality. Many participants loved listening to the radio with Radio 4, Radio 2 and Radio 3 favourites amongst participants. One participant said however that his children listened to Capital Radio FM in the mornings, because they liked the presenters.

Several said they loved Radio Wales in the morning – “I’ve no time to read to read a newspaper so can catch up with all the news on Radio Wales in the morning”.

Making reference to the Jason Mohammed show, some participants said that while they enjoyed the programme “people  get heated during the debates and go on a bit too much.”

Other said that they enjoyed the Roy Noble show.

Jeremy Vine was praised for being very fair in presenting arguments and was considered to have a “nice way” when asking questions.

bbc.co.uk was extensively used for catching up on News by participants and the iPlayer was also used a lot.

Participants expressed their appreciation of the BBC Bitesize educational material available on-line and looked forward to having the knowledge and learning provision expanded in future. Some considered that the BBC had a key role to play in contributing to the development of basic and core skills such as numeracy and literacy.

There was an expectation that the BBC also had an important role in educating the population at large, with a recent examples being Mary Beard’s TV series on Roman Civilization and Brian Cox’s TV programmes on science. They considered that the BBC could also contribute to language learning and helping people improve their English, not just for people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Child of our Time was praised and it was said that children had enjoyed the series.

The BBC considered the best for News but international news was considered to have too low a profile on much of BBC UK Network news with the vast majority of News’ time given to the UK, Europe and the USA, with little attention given to the rest of the world. CNN was mentioned as being much better for covering international affairs than the BBC’s UK News service. However, BBC World, when accessed outside the UK, was considered good at providing world-wide news.

There was a perception that BBC News lacked impartiality in relation to reporting on China, with participants perceiving a bias against China. They felt that this had changed during the past 10 – 15 years, and that in the past they felt the BBC had been pro-China to a much greater extent, during the period when it was an emerging economy. Now they felt the tone was far more critical and that criticism of the governing regime should be differentiated from comments on the country. They accepted that human rights issues by the country’s governing regime should properly be highlighted, but that it had not been appropriate, for example, to do so ‘ad nauseum’ during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. While news coverage of China was appreciated, there was a perception that too much emphasis was placed on covering human rights issues rather than the wider picture of the country beyond the governing regime – “Human Rights issues seems to be the only news from China on the BBC”.

The perception of some participants was also that the BBC demonstrated bias against China when discussing ‘Asian struggles’ and some also made the point that it was important for several perspectives to be shown on Chinese stories so that they had a better opportunity to draw their own conclusions from the information available.

They praised the use of Mandarin speaking reporters in News reports since they felt this enabled the journalist to achieve good, tough but impartial reporting.

Match of the day was considered an ‘appointment to view’ by many of the participants.

The BBC’s coverage of the Olympic Games was considered first class. Its coverage of the Queen’s Jubilee Celebrations had also been appreciated.