JANUARY'S AIRTIME PERCENTAGES - GUESS WHO STILL RULES THE WAVES?

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Totalling up the lengths of all last month's interviews with UK politicians I've been able to work out an exact percentage for the amount of airtime each party has been granted for political interviews by the BBC in January.

The dominance of the BBC's airwaves by the Labour Party remains. If you sometimes feel, say, that there are a lot of Tory-free zones, or wonder when you last heard from UKIP, these figures suggest why!
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While accepting that the governing party is likely to be questioned more than opposition parties - and rightly so! - the sheer scale of Labour's dominance is hardly healthy for democracy. If Labour's absolute majority of interview time was balanced by significantly tougher questioning, this would be fine - but it isn't; indeed, the questioning of Labour is significantly less tough than that of the Tories, the SNP and UKIP. So what's the BBC's excuse then?
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Labour - 54.81% (12h 13m 18s)
Conservatives - 22.81% (5h 5m 13s)
Lib Dems - 12.65% (2h 49m 19s)
SNP - 2.25% (30m 10s)
Sinn Fein - 1.68% (22m 49s)
UKIP - 1.44% (19m 28s)
DUP - 1.22% (16m 34s)
Independents - 0.90% (12m 1s)
Greens - 0.60% (8m 4s)
SDLP - 0.48% (6m 46s)
Alliance - 0.46% (6m 18s)
TUV - 0.46% (6m 18s)
Respect - 0.24% (3m 16s)
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DECEMBER'S AIRTIME PERCENTAGES - LABOUR STILL RULES THE WAVES

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Totalling up the lengths of all last month's interviews with UK politicians I've been able to work out an exact percentage for the amount of airtime each party has been granted for political interviews by the BBC in December.

The dominance of the BBC's airwaves by the Labour Party remains.
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While accepting that the governing party is likely to be questioned more than opposition parties - and rightly so! - the sheer scale of Labour's dominance is hardly healthy for democracy.

Labour - 56.20% (7h 49m 56s)
Conservatives - 29.01% (4h 2m 40s)
Lib Dems - 11.65% (1h 37m 30s)
SNP - 1.21% (10m 13s)
UKIP - 0.99% (8m 25s)
Independents - 0.65% (5m 40s)
Plaid Cymru - 0.29% (2m 46s)

SHAUN LEYBOUR

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The whole of the second half of today's The World at One (14 minutes-worth of airtime) was devoted to a politicians' panel discussion on public spending cuts, presented by Shaun Ley. The three politicians interviewed were Eric Joyce, Patricia Hewitt and Charles Clarke. Yes, three Labour MPs!! Their interruption coefficients were 0.2, 0.2 and 0 respectively.
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Shaun's on-air justification was that as Labour have been in power for the last 12 years, it would be good to hear from three politicians with recent experience of cutting public spending. Yes, that really was his justification for excluding all opposition politicians!!
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As I've recorded every interview Shaun Ley has conducted on Radio 4 since June of this year I can now reveal that he has conducted the following number of interviews with politicians of each UK political party:

Labour - 49
Conservatives - 18
Lib Dems - 10
DUP - 1
Sinn Fein - 1
UUP - 1
UKIP - 1
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In other words, he's interviewed more Labour MPs than all the politicians from all the other political parties put together (and by some margin, 49-32). Of course, because Labour is in power it is right that it in particular is held to account by journalists. (Tell that to Michael Crick!)So, if that's the reason why Labour dominates The World at One, you might expect to find that Shaun Ley interrupts Labour MPs more than those from the opposition parties. Not so, his average interruption coefficient against Labour is 0.37, whereas his average interruption coefficient against the Conservatives is higher at 0.45 - though for the Lib Dems it is a mere 0.14. (His figure against UKIP is higher still, at 0.5).
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Shaun Ley is by no means the worst offender at the BBC - or anywhere near it -, but he is an offender nonetheless.

NOVEMBER'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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There has been a very marked shift away from Labour being the dominant force on the Beeb's air-waves (as it used to regularly take well over 50% of all the interview time.) This is encouraging. We're not a one-party state after all.
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Labour - 7 hours 44 minutes 21 seconds (41.1%)
Conservatives - 6 hours 25 minutes 11 seconds (34.1%)
Liberal Democrats - 2 hours 16 minutes 19 seconds (12.0%)
SNP- 1 hour 15 minutes 4 seconds (6.7%)
UKIP - 29 minutes 10 seconds (2.6%)
Greens - 16 minutes 34 seconds (1.5%)
Sinn Fein - 9 minutes 35 seconds (0.9%)
Independents - 8 minutes 1 second (0.7%)
Plaid Cymru - 4 minutes 59 seconds (0.4%)

OCTOBER'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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With the BBC's coverage of the Conservative Party conference an unprecedented thing happened in October - the Conservatives got more air-time than Labour! Last month they came third behind the Liberal Democrats (whose party conference it was then). As I posted then, this distorts matters (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/septembers-ics-airtime-percentages.html) - distortion ironed out by combining October's figures with September's (the party conference season). This I shall do, as promised.
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But first, here's this month's figures, complete with the actual amounts of interview time granted to each party:
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Conservatives - 10 hours 51 minutes 29 seconds, 43.20%
Labour - 10 hours 42 minutes 41 seconds, 42.61%
Liberal Democrats - 1 hour 45 minutes 39 seconds, 6.99%
SNP - 1 hour 0 minutes 22 seconds, 3.99%
UKIP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.74%
DUP - 9 minutes 2 seconds, 0.60%
BNP - 8 minutes 8 seconds, 0.54%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.41%
Greens - 5 minutes 20 seconds, 0.34%
Alliance - 3 minutes 26 seconds, 0.22%
Plaid Cymru - 3 minutes 16 seconds, 0.21%
UUP - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.15%
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Now for the combined figures for September/October:
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Labour - 23 hours 7 minutes 58 seconds, 51.01%
Conservatives - 13 hours 43 minutes 30 seconds, 30.26%
Liberal Democrats - 5 hours 50 minutes 49 seconds, 12.88%
SNP - 1 hour 19 minutes 57 seconds, 2.92%
UKIP - 22 minutes 9 seconds, 0.81%
DUP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.41%
Plaid Cymru - 10 minutes 50 seconds, 0.39%
Greens - 8 minutes 11 seconds, 0.30%
BNP - 8 minutes 6 seconds, 0.29%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.23%
Independents - 5 minutes 16 seconds, 0.19%
UUP - 4 minutes 54 seconds, 0.17%
English Democrats - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.08%
SDLP - 1 minute 56 seconds, 0.06%
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So, despite the Conservative Party conference, Labour continues the rule the BBC's airwaves, with a majority of the corporation's interview time.
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Click on the label for 'Air Time' and you'll see that this is par for the course.
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SEPTEMBER'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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Just as the figures for the total number of interviews granted to each political party in September have been heavilly tilted by the Lib Dem and Labour conferences, so my other main measure, the % of interview air-time allocated to each each political party, has been skewed too. As the Conservative conference is coming, October's totals should redress the balance a bit. If they don't, we will have found ongoing bias. Again, at the end of October a measure for both September and October will be given. That will be the one to look for.

Still, as work in progress, here are the September timings and totals:

Labour - 12 hours 25 minutes 26 seconds, 61.51%
Liberal Democrats - 4 hours 5 minutes 10 seconds, 19.98%
Conservatives - 2 hours 52 minutes 1 second, 14.03%
SNP - 19 minutes 35 seconds, 1.58%
UKIP - 10 minutes 52 seconds, 0.86%
Plaid Cymru - 7 minutes 34 seconds, 0.62%
Independent - 5 minutes 16 seconds, 0.43%
Greens - 2 minutes 51 seconds, 0.23%
English Democrats - 2 minutes 47 seconds, 0.23%
UUP - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.21%
DUP - 2 minutes 15 seconds, 0.19%
SDLP - 1 minute 56 seconds, 0.13%

Curiously, the Labour % is not greatly different to that of preceding months, showing just how much they usually dominate the Beeb's studios.

INTRODUCING 'HEARTS AND MINDS'

The Scots have The Politics Show: Scotland and the lucky Welsh have Dragon's Eye. The equivalent in Northern Ireland (shown on the BBC Parliament Channel on Sundays) is Hearts and Minds, hosted by Noel Thomson. I thought it might be interesting to see if any trends in bias emerge over the coming months in its coverage of the province's political scene - using those tried-and-tested interruption coefficients.
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Because Northern Ireland's political parties are so different to those of the rest of the United Kingdom - and because I want to keep my Air-Time Percentages index free from such obscuring complications - I won't be including the programme in my monthly I.C. spreadsheets - but it can have a spreadsheet of its own instead.
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For starters, here are the figures for the first programme of the new season:
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Arlene Foster, DUP - 1.6 (with 7 interruptions)
David McNarry, UUP - 1.2 (with 3 interruptions)
Alex Attwood, SDLP - 0.6 (with 2 interruptions)
John O'Dowd, Sinn Fein - 0.3 (with 1 interruption)
Stephen Farry, Alliance - 0 (with 0 interruptions)
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Only time will tell whether these starkly contrasting figures are statistically significant - or not.

AUGUST'S I.C.s - TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME EACH PARTY GOT

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Who hogged all the hours & minutes & seconds of the BBC's precious interview air-time in August? You'll never guess!!

Labour - 6 hours, 5 minutes & 33 seconds
Conservatives - 2 hours, 37 minutes & 57 seconds
Liberal Democrats - 1 hour, 32 minutes & 15 seconds
SNP - 1 hour, 7 minutes & 6 seconds
Greens - 7 minutes & 11 seconds
Independents - 3 minutes & 47 seconds
UKIP - 3 minutes & 33 seconds
Plaid Cymru - 2 minutes & 42 seconds

JULY'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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The dominance of the BBC's airwaves by the Labour Party, which this blog highlighted in June, continued in July (and even slightly increased).

While accepting that the governing party is likely to be questioned more than opposition parties - and rightly so! - the sheer scale of Labour's dominance is unhealthy for democracy.

Also unhealthy is the relagation of UKIP, the second party in the European elections (16.5%), to 7th place on this list - behind the Greens, the SNP and even the BNP. Only Plaid Cymru came off worse. This is an outrage!!

Here then are the damning percentages:

Labour - 60.92%
Conservatives - 24.08%
Lib Dems - 10.82%
SNP - 2.08%
Greens - 0.82%
BNP - 0.76%
UKIP - 0.32%
Plaid Cymru - 0.22%

MID-MONTH REVIEW

It's the middle of the month, so here's an update on the the Interruption Coefficient findings for July, looked at from three angles.

So far I've covered 151 interviews.


AIRTIME

Totalling up the lengths of all the interviews I've been able to work out an exact percentage for the amount of airtime each party has been granted by the BBC so far this month:

Labour 57.1%
Conservatives 24.8%
Lib Dems 9.9%
SNP 3.2%
Greens 1.4%
Crossbench 1.3%
BNP 1.3%
UKIP 0.6%
Plaid Cymru 0.4%

This certainly looks to me like rampant institutional pro-Labour bias. Even granted that they are the governing party &, thus, liable for greater questioning, the staggering scale of the Labour Party's dominance of the BBC airwaves (an absolute majority, a landslide, more than all the other parties combined) is surely anti-democratic.

Incidentally, the UKIP figure of 0.6% is a disgrace. In the last nationwide election (June's European election) they gained 16.5% of the vote. You would have thought that this would have entitled them to more airtime on the Beeb. Not a bit of it.

The cross-bench figure is for Lord Owen, who is a non-aligned member in the House of Lords.


NUMBER OF INTERVIEWS GRANTED TO EACH PARTY

BNP - 1
Conservatives - 39
Crossbench - 1
Green - 4
Labour - 76
Lib Dems - 22
Plaid Cymru - 1
SNP - 5
UKIP - 2

Note here how the Lib Dem and Conservative figures rise in relation to Labour, revealing the fact that the Labour Party interviews tended to be longer. Again though, Labour is dominant.


AVERAGE NUMBER OF INTERRUPTIONS PER PARTY

This is in many ways going to be one of the Interruption Coefficient's most telling results. These figures are obtained by simply adding all the interruptions contained in all the interviews with a particular party together & then working out an average (by dividing it by the number of interviews granted to each party).

BNP - 8
Plaid Cymru - 5
SNP - 5
Conservatives - 3.5
Labour -3
UKIP - 2
Lib Dems - 1.5
Green - 0.5
Crossbench - 0

So though, as stated above, you might expect the governing Labour Party to receive a little more airtime, so that they can be questioned on government policy, these results reveal that Her Majesty's official opposition, in fact, receive tougher questioning than Her Majesty's government. So much for that potential BBC excuse!

Note the Liberal Democrat and Green figures & see what an easy ride they are given. This seems to me to be a particularly telling result.

All the nationalist parties fair badly, a trend I noticed last month too.


FINAL THOUGHT

All this goes to show that "there is a democratic deficit in this country which is getting more dangerous by the year" (as someone, I can't think who!, said recently) & the BBC is a big part of the problem.

At this month's end, I will try to use these figures to help further the fight against BBC bias. I have received some invaluable advice from fellow bloggers on how to do this - and do it I will.
Will it do any good? Only time will tell.

LABOUR STILL RULES THE WAVES

For the first seven days of July 2009, the BBC airwaves have continued to be dominated by the Labour government:

Labour, 4o interviewees, 63.7% of airtime
Conservatives, 15 interviewees, 24% of airtime
Lib Dems, 6 interviewees, 5.9% of airtime
SNP, 2 interviewees, 3% of airtime
Green, 3 interviewees, 2.7% of airtime
Plaid Cymru, 1 interviewee, 0.9% of airtime
UKIP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime
BNP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime

Would you think this was a vibrant multi-party democracy?

LABOUR RULES THE WAVES

Covering 146 BBC interviews in June (some single-interviewee, some panel discussions), & totalling the lengths of each revealed the extent of the Labour Party's dominance of both the airwaves & the BBC's address book.

Here are the remarkable percentages:

Labour 60.44%
Conservatives 22.83%
Lib Dems 10.16%
SNP 4.01%
UKIP 0.98%
BNP 0.94%
Greens 0.64%

A governing party may be expected to receive more attention from a questioning media, but the sheer scale of Labour's dominance raises serious questions about the BBC's impartiality.