Developing World being overlooked by British TV Broadcasters

The latest research published by 3WE (Third World & Environment Broadcasting Project) on 5th July, has showed that the factual television coverage of the developing world is at its lowest level ever recorded. 3WE is a coalition of the UK’s leading international development, environment and human rights charities such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, Unicef-UK, Save the Children, Comic Relief, International Broadcasting Trust, World Association for Christian Communication and so on.

The report entitled “The World on the Box” was entrusted to the Communications and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) at the University of Westminster by 3WE. The investigation is a detailed and comprehensive one, taking into account the period from 1975 to 2003. According to the introduction of the report, its purpose is to “analyse to what extent, in the broadcasting environment of 2003, the public service obligations are being met and how the nature and pattern of international factual programming today compares with the last 14 years.” The objectives of investigation are the most popular and influential broadcasting channels across the UK, namely BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel Five.

Especially noted by one of the allies of 3WE, Christian Aid, some important findings are as follows:

- Factual programming about the developing world has halved since the survey began in 1989-90, to its lowest level ever.

- Only 24 factual programmes in the year dealt with issues of politics, development, environment and human rights in developing countries - a further fall of one quarter since 2000-01.

- The amount of general factual international programming on the four largest terrestrial channels was 40% lower in 2003 than in 1989-90.

- Conversely, the main evening news bulletins on all the channels have kept up a high proportion of international stories.

- The Iraq war's domination of international news in 2003 led to some of the highest ever figures for developing country news. Other regions of the developing world, and other key story subjects, had very limited news coverage.

The 3WE co-ordinator, Don Redding said, “The British public are having blinkers slapped on them by TV bosses who are violating the letter and the spirit of their public service obligations. How are UK citizens supposed to understand the world if they aren’t even told about it?"

3WE, has a vision to maintain sustained, high quality television coverage of developing countries, their people, and the environment in which they live. As technology has advanced so much in the past decade and a half, information transmission has become so efficient that people’s lives are flooded with all kinds of information, more specifically, commercial advertisement. Some researches revealed that 90% of the information received is useless. In the midst of all these external challenges, 3WE has been working actively to promote and protect the interests of UK citizens, as citizens of the global information society.

3WE and its allies in the voluntary sector campaigned successfully to improve the Communications Act 2003. A new regulator, Ofcom, was set up. It has a "principal duty to further the interests of citizens", which means that the needs and rights of the ordinary citizen should take preference over the commercial interests of media corporations. One year later, to a certain extent, this report may have shown the inefficiency of Ofcom as well as the failure of the broadcasters to fulfill their public service obligations.

The 3WE co-ordinator, Don Redding commented, “Ofcom are making a mockery of the mandate given to them by Parliament. When the Communications Act was passed in 2003, extensive public and parliamentary support helped amend it to include a requirement for adequate programming on ‘matters of international significance or interest.”

Redding continued to criticise the deafening silence of Ofcom, and said that Ofcom seems unwilling to take any action to stop the blatant violations of broadcasters’ public service obligations. He therefore called for the concern of Parliament and the Government urgently to look again at the regulator’s operations.