Daily chartQuestion Time, the BBC’s flagship political show, gets a female host

BASHING the BBC, Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster, is a national pastime. A Google search for “BBC biased” yields 125,000 results, including a lengthy Wikipedia page and a website dedicated to the matter. According to a poll by BMG Research in 2018, 40% of the country thinks that the broadcaster is politically partisan—though there is nearly an even split between those who believe that it leans to the left and those who claim that it favours the right. Some viewers complain that the BBC promotes false balance, by inviting crackpots to debate with experts. Others moan that it is obsessed with political correctness, and are particularly grumpy about the latest season of “Doctor Who”: the Time Lord is now a woman, with two sidekicks from ethnic-minority backgrounds.

The anti-PC brigade will no doubt be further irritated by the forthcoming makeover of “Question Time”, a long-running show in which the audience interrogates a panel of politicians and other public figures (including, on occasion, journalists from The Economist). On January 10th Fiona Bruce, a presenter on several of the broadcaster’s news and culture programmes, will become the first permanent female host in the show’s 40-year history. She has large shoes to fill. David Dimbleby, who had been in the moderator’s chair since 1994, was liked by many for his cantankerous treatment of the guests and audience.

In fact, “Question Time” has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to proportionally representing the British public. The audience itself is subject to questioning before each episode, to ensure that it reflects the diversity of public opinion. According to figures collected by Stuart Lowe, a data scientist, the show’s guests have consistently been 30-40% female, still some way short of half but far higher than the share of women in Parliament or on other television panels. A separate dataset compiled by Iain Collins, an employee of The Economist, reveals that the proportion of politicians invited from minor parties (ie, those other than the Conservatives or Labour) has closely tracked the share of the popular vote that they received in general elections. Over the past decade, the number of guest spots given to the Liberal Democrats and UKIP has almost exactly matched their performance at the ballot box. 

The BBC is right to strive for balance on the show, given the impact that it has. Around 4m people watched a special episode featuring Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn before the general election in 2017. A poll by commissioned by the Electoral Reform Society, a pressure group, found that the episode influenced the voting choices of one-third of viewers.

On one issue, however, the programme is heavily skewed. An analysis by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think-tank, found that 69% of guests in the 18 months after the Brexit referendum had supported the Remain campaign. That is hardly surprising, since most MPs opposed leaving the European Union. Despite its concerted efforts to represent the people, the BBC cannot change the composition of Parliament.