Kevin Bakhurst, The Evening Standard

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

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THE BBC MAN SET ON MAKING SKY BLUE: As News 24 Finally Overtakes Its Main Rival, Controller Kevin Bakhurst Insists Putting His Channel At The Heart Of The Corporation's News Output Will Keep It Out In Front BY JAMES SILVER

Next week sees major changes at the BBC's rolling news channel News 24. But controller Kevin Bakhurst baulks at characterising it as a relaunch. It is, he insists, in fluent BBC corporate-speak, 'a rolling process of change'. From Monday, some of the corporation's most recognisable faces will be appearing on the channel in a bid to boost its profile and credibility.

Huw Edwards will present a nightly 5-6pm slot, while the One O'Clock and Six O'Clock News bulletins will join the Ten O'Clock News in being simulcast on BBC1 and News 24. Stars like Ben Brown and Emily Maitlis are already part of the channel's line-up. Now the ubiquitous Andrew Neil has also been drafted in to host a new version of Straight Talk, which will feature one-on-one in-depth interviews with politicians.

The increasingly bitter tussle for ratings between News 24 and Sky News has been likened to two bald men slugging it out over a comb. Big breaking-news days aside, the audience for rolling news is relatively small and entrenched. Fractions of a single percentage point separate the channels. TV ratings body BARB's figures for last year showed that News 24 trailed Sky in terms of reach and share. But so far in 2006, News 24 has nosed ahead posting a 0.45 per cent share in multichannel homes last month to Sky's 0.35 per cent.

Talking to News 24's controller Kevin Bakhurst, a likeable BBC-lifer, evidence of the intense rivalry is never far away. Last October Sky News underwent a multimillion-pound revamp, which included a new set, a worrying-sounding motorised presenting desk and a vast 'news wall'. The schedule was overhauled too, introducing appointment-to-view programmes hosted by former US State Department spokesman James Rubin and ex-GMTV anchor Eamonn Holmes. What did Bakhurst, 41, make of the relaunch?

'I don't really want to go down the road of Sky-bashing,' he says, before embarking down a remarkably similar route, 'but obviously the relaunch hasn't been successful. They had a successful product, they spent a lot of money on the relaunch and is the product more successful? Answer: no. Personally I think there are a lot of areas they could address, but I am not going to start outlining them in case they do them.'

For one thing, he doesn't rate Rubin. 'I keep an eye on my competitors. I watch [Rubin's programme]. I'm probably one of the few who does. What do I think about him? I think he's a great pundit. They've got work to do in terms of him being more relaxed and less wooden [as a presenter].

'Sky News,' he continues, 'has moved on to the [US network] Fox News model. They come from the Murdoch stable, they're paid for by Murdoch and that's obviously what [Sky chief] Dawn Airey and Rupert Murdoch want them to do. I'm not sure whether they think it's been a success. I think their use of three presenters at the same time is a bit funny, and if that was licence-fee money, I think that's one too many presenters to be paying for.'

Born in 1965, Bakhurst went to Haberdashers' Aske's school and St John's College, Cambridge. After a brush with accountancy, he joined the BBC Business and Economics Unit in 1989 as a researcher, rapidly rising to assistant editor of the Nine O'Clock and Ten O'Clock News seven years later. After two years as an editor at News 24, he returned to 'the Ten' as editor and became controller of News 24 last December.

Bakhurst's post was created as part of a reorganisation of BBC TV News, which placed News 24 at the heart of the news operation. 'One of the strategies is to put the very best talent the BBC has -including our presenters - on News 24,' he explains. 'It is actually one thing we've got which Sky hasn't got. We have got some household-name presenters with long track records who have established themselves with the audience.'

What about Sky's Eamonn Holmes, he's pretty well-known, I suggest? 'Hmmm,' replies Bakhurst, 'there's an argument whether he's being used to the best of his talents. I don't think Eamonn Holmes's breakfast show works very well. Sky has got some good presenters, but I don't think they've got anyone to match the household recognition of Huw Edwards and Ben Brown.' Sky might reasonably point to their highly-respected political editor Adam Boulton, or indeed, their award-winning presenter Jeremy Thompson.

Launched in 1997, News 24 was for several years viewed with a certain degree of condescension and suspicion within the corporation's news division. Early glitches and the dominance of Sky News didn't help its reputation in the press either. 'It's always difficult being second in the marketplace and Sky was already well established when News 24 started up,' concedes Bakhurst. 'News 24 had a lot of teething and technical problems in the early years, but the transformation now of not just the product, but how we are perceived within the BBC, is astounding.'

News 24 may have overtaken its rival in terms of audience, but Sky News has long jealously guarded its reputation for getting breaking stories on air more quickly. For that reason it remains the channel of choice in most newspaper newsrooms. Bakhurst says this is an issue he is now addressing.

'I have been talking to newspapers about this and I think it's largely a function of habit. They tell me they use Sky as a copy-tasting service, but then they switch over to us when there are big stories as our coverage is better, particularly of foreign news. If we can prove that we are as fast as Sky - and that we have the better correspondents - then they'll have to watch us in the end.'

(The Evening Standard, April 5th 2006)

Posted by James Silver - On Wednesday, April 05, 2006

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