The response to my FoI requesting the viewing figures for Reporting Scotland, below. Note that they freely tell us the tiny figures for the Seven and the Nine, broadcast only in Scotland, on the BBC Scotland channel.

What are they hiding? I think we know.

British Broadcasting Corporation Information Rights
Wogan House, 99 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 7NY bbc.co.uk/foi
foi@bbc.co.uk

John Robertson
10 January 2024

Dear John,
Freedom of Information Request – RFI20231614

Thank you for your request to the BBC dated 16 December 2023 seeking the
following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘the Act’):
“Please provide me with the annual viewing figure totals for BBC Reporting
Scotland episodes at 6pm, Monday to Friday, since 2014.”

If held, the information you have requested is held for the purposes of ‘art,
journalism or literature’. The FOI Act provides that the BBC is not obliged to
disclose this type of information and we will therefore not be disclosing any
information requested by you on this occasion.

However, for daily reports, you can visit https://www.barb.co.uk/ for information.
Information held for the purposes of art, journalism or literature by the BBC
Information that relates to the BBC’s output, or information that supports and is
closely associated with these creative activities, is considered to be held by the BBC
for the purposes of art, journalism or literature. Such information held by the BBC
and other public service broadcasters falls outside the scope of the FOI Act.

The limited application of the FOI Act described above recognises that the BBC
and other public service broadcasters can preserve their independence by ensuring
information about matters including editorial decisions about programming and
budgets allocated to such programming, are not subject to undue public scrutiny.
It is important that the BBC is an independent and impartial news organisation.
We have also attached a more detailed explanation of how the FOI Act applies to
the BBC and other public service broadcasters which we hope you will find helpful.
In this case, you have requested information about – a key audience metric. An
importance part of the BBC’s work is obtaining feedback on its programmes,
products and services, reflecting on that feedback and making informed decisions
about the quality and value of that output to its audiences, and making
improvements. Audience measurement information, such as viewing figures, is one
way that the BBC measures an audience’s reaction to output and, whether alone or
combined with other feedback, this is then used to inform decisions about what
content is created and how content should be delivered to audiences.

In this way, this information is directly related to the BBC’s editorial decision-
making processes. The Information Commissioner’s Office (‘the ICO’) has accepted on a number of occasions that viewing figures are held for derogated journalistic
purposes, and is therefore excluded from the Act.1
Please also be advised that viewing figures are provided to the BBC by the
Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB). Some summary figures are
available free of charge, via the BARB website, http://www.barb.co.uk but for more
detailed information you need to be a subscriber. Our agreement with BARB
stipulates that the data is used for our own internal purposes, should be treated as
confidential, and should not be disclosed to any person; to do so would put us in
breach of this agreement. In addition, were such information to be disclosed by the
BBC (or any other subscriber) free of charge, this would jeopardise the funding
model on which BARB operates.
Appeal Rights

1 For example, see case reference FS50590819 https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-
taken/decisionnotices/2015/1560055/fs_50590819.pdf, and case reference FS50749893 ,

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2018/2259725/fs50749893.pdf.

The BBC does not offer an internal review when the information requested is not
covered by the Act. If you disagree with our decision you can appeal to the
Information Commissioner. Contact details are: Information Commissioner’s
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, tel: 0303 123
1113 or see http://www.ico.org.uk
Please note that should the Information Commissioner’s Office decide that the Act
does cover this information, exemptions under the Act might then apply.
Yours sincerely,
Information Rights
BBC Legal