Tim Bonner: BBC impartiality review aims at the wrong target

I was surprised to see reports that the BBC is to review the impartiality of Countryfile as it has been at the centre of 'rows over farming and fox hunting'. These rows had certainly passed me by and seem a little unlikely given that the programme has not even reported on hunting since 2015 when it visited the Berkeley kennels on the tenth anniversary of the implementation of the Hunting Act. More than that, Countryfile's output is so anodyne that rows over impartiality are hardly likely to be common. It is classic Sunday night television which can be superficial but remains incredibly popular with an average of 6 million viewers every week. The main criticism of Countryfile I hear is not about impartiality, but that it is programming about the countryside, rather than for the countryside.

My instinctive response to the Countryfile story is that the BBC has picked the wrong target, probably on purpose. The worst of the BBC's rural output is pseudo-scientific, anthropomorphic nonsense on programmes like Springwatch and Autumnwatch. The Alliance has also had some concerns about Farming Today, which purports to be programming for the farming community and the countryside, but in fact tends to follow the agenda of environmental and animal rights NGOs, as does BBC national news.

In 2013 the BBC Trust commissioned Heather Hancock to carry out a rural impartiality review and she raised concerns about the narrow range of organisations the BBC is reliant on saying: "contributions from within and outside the BBC, and our wide review of BBC content, point to undue dependence on a very small number of NGOs to either set the rural affairs agenda or more often to respond to it". Despite the review, very little seems to have changed regarding that 'undue dependence'.

Perhaps the reason that the BBC has chosen to review the impartiality of its least controversial rural programme is to avoid the elephant in the room which is the platform it continues to give one of its highest profile presenters, Chris Packham, to carry out some of the most partial campaigning imaginable.

BBC Director General Tim Davie made some very strong comments when he took up the role including saying: "If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC". Yet Chris Packham has continued to be the most partisan of social media warriors with absolutely no comeback or comment from his employers.

When the Alliance brought a complaint that he had breached editorial guidelines in 2015 the BBC concluded that "while Mr Packham might be described as a recurring presenter, he was not a regular presenter" so the guidelines did not apply. This sort of ludicrous BBC evasion continues and only this week in its annual report the corporation disclosed the salaries of sports, music and news presenters, but not presenters of rural or nature programmes as they are made by a commercial subsidiary rather than the BBC itself.

A few years ago the BBC's absurdly named and largely anonymous 'rural champion' accepted an invitation from the Alliance to debate the BBC's rural coverage at the Game Fair. He was very surprised when no one in the packed theatre raised their hand when asked if they felt the corporation represented their way of life. Sadly, the continued evasion of the BBC means that its reputation in the rural community remains seriously tarnished.

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