The Liberal Democrats are claiming that Reform UK gets too much television coverage for a party of its size, attacking the BBC on bias grounds. For a party that supposedly rails against the ‘evil populism’ of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, they seem to enjoy singing from the same ‘biased mainstream media’ hymn sheet when coverage isn’t to their taste.
The party has launched a petition to shout against what they claim is “wall to wall” coverage of Reform, with the party’s media and culture spokesman claiming the BBC is “compounding the rise of a dangerous populism that threatens the fabric of our country. The BBC is following Farage around like a lost puppy and the resulting wall-to-wall coverage is giving legitimacy to a man who wants to do to Britain what Trump is doing to America.”
It would be easy to engage in these claims by pointing out that, if the LibDems are jealous of Reform’s media coverage, they could easily improve their own press appeal by having anything interesting or original to say on a given political topic.
Or indeed they could think about having a party leader who is slightly less boring than drying paint, and whose strategy involves things other than falling off paddle boards. Bear in mind that after five years leading the LibDems, more than half the public don’t know who he is, and just 60% of LibDem voters can identify him by name.
The cold hard truth is that Nigel Farage and Reform UK are, in fact, receiving the right amount of television news coverage, and the data shows it.
Analysis by ‘Be Broadcast’s Mission Control’ revealed exactly how broadcast airtime is spent on each political party.
The key point is that this is a very tricky issue for broadcasters, and I’m not usually overly sympathetic to the BBC.
You can measure ‘proportionate coverage’ in three completely different ways: the number of seats the party has; the share of the vote they received in the last general election; or the share of the vote they currently have in the polls.
It’s clearly idiotic for a broadcaster to ignore the astonishing rise in poll popularity of Reform, and therefore redundant to compare Mr Farage’s coverage to the proportion of the party’s MPs.
If the LibDems wanted outfits like the BBC to only reflect Commons seats when it comes to handing out media coverage, Labour would completely dominate the news agenda, which wouldn’t help them at all.
According to the data from Be Broadcast’s Mission Control, it is accurate to say that the LibDems are “underexposed” on TV news.
It is also true that Reform is overexposed if you compare its current level of coverage to either its five MPs, or its 2024 share of the vote.
However Reform’s coverage is proportional compared to its current poll level. As BBMC conclude: “Reform win on broadcast impact per MP and per historic vote share but look more balanced when compared to current voter support.”
The party the LibDems should be angry about getting a disproportionate amount of news coverage is in fact Labour, who are receiving too much coverage compared to both their 2024 election vote share, and their current poll rating. This also applies to the SNP.
The Tories, like the LibDems, are also underexposed in TV news coverage, both in terms of its share of MPs and its 2024 election vote share. Though their coverage is proportional compared to its current poll rating.
Ironically the Green Party are also enjoying disproportionate levels of broadcast attention compared to the number of seats they won at the last election.
Josh Wheeler, Founder of Be Broadcast, explained: “Broadcast is the soundtrack to our political lives. It shapes how we understand the country we’re living in right now. What Mission Control shows is that the volume isn’t balanced. Some parties are being handed a megaphone that far outstrips their real-world support, while others with millions of backers are barely a whisper. It’s less about Parliament and more about momentum, and that tells us who really understands the power of broadcast engagement… and who perhaps doesn’t”
If the LibDems want better broadcast coverage, they should, as the saying goes, get better, not bitter.