If the BBC wants to know why nearly a million listeners have dropped the Today programme, they might want to look at their political coverage first

An anxiety about appearing out of touch led some time ago to a conscious effort to engage with ‘extreme opinion’ – hence why Nigel Farage became such a popular choice for BBC bookers

BBC Radio 4’s flagship news and current affairs programme, Today, which for decades has set the agenda for the media-political elite, has been haemorrhaging listeners. According to figures released by RAJAR, the official body for the monitoring of radio audiences, the programme has lost more than 800,000 listeners over the past year. Even with Today’s sizeable remaining audience of just under 7 million, this is a significant drop.

Commenting on the figures, the BBC noted that audiences for news and current affairs programmes fluctuate over time, and suggested a “quieter news agenda” partly explained the drop-off. Which makes you wonder if their press officers have been following the news lately.

What’s really going on? Well in truth the BBC doesn’t know, and neither does anybody else. RAJAR’s figures only report on what people listen to and for how long. They don’t tell us why they listen (or don’t), or what they think about the programmes and stations they listen to. But it’s safe to say, given that this is the Today programme and that the figures are out of step with the broader sector, that this is a symptom of something political.

The news didn’t come as a surprise to me. I’ve had conversations with a number of people over the past year, liberals and leftists, who have finally given up on the programme. My social circles, though, are hardly representative of Today’s audience, although admittedly probably more than I would like them to be.

What do we know beyond the anecdotal? Edelman’s Trust Barometer, published earlier this year, found that one third of the people they surveyed follow the news less than they used to, while a fifth now avoid it completely.

The three most common reasons given were that the news is too depressing (40 per cent), too biased (33 per cent), or reflects “hidden agendas” (27 per cent). An earlier survey from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute found that sixty per cent of respondents said news “can have a negative effect on my mood” and just under a third said they felt they couldn’t rely on the news to be true.

In the Edelman survey, trust in “traditional media” – and Radio 4 is certainly traditional – at the same time saw a notable rise. This reflects the increased scepticism about social media and anxiety about “fake news”, and is consistent with other surveys that show that trust in the BBC remains high, especially compared to the press.

What does this suggest about Today’s lost listeners? The departures likely reflects some of these more general reasons for “news avoidance”, coupled with the politics of Today and its audience in particular. I think we can expect that these ex-listeners still trust the BBC over other media organisations, but that they find the Today programme too depressing and/or angering to bear. And given the profile of its listenership – disproportionately educated, middle-class and concentrated in the south-east – we can expect a significant factor to be the programme’s coverage of Brexit.

The BBC in general has come under fire from anti-Brexit campaigners in the past year – who allege that the corporation has been too soft on the Brexiteers and has failed to report adequately on the misdemeanours of the Leave camp during the campaign. The Today programme in particular, and John Humphrys most particularly, are a focus of complaints. We can also expect another chunk of the departed listeners to be Labour supporters who are exhausted and exasperated at the programme’s treatment of the party leadership.

Claims of BBC bias are of course ubiquitous in UK politics, so it’s easy to be dismissive of allegations when they come from all quarters. Yet there is scholarly research that supports the allegations made by the “Remoaners” and the “Corbynites”, albeit indirectly.

First, a number of recent analyses have found that broadcast news tends to balance competing claims, rather than scrutinising their veracity. This leads, if not to “fake news”, then at least to inaccurate or misleading claims – overwhelmingly from the right – appearing unchallenged, or even driving the news agenda.

Secondly, there is evidence that the editorial culture of the BBC, in particular, has shifted rightwards over the past decade. In this sense, the recent appointment of Sarah Sands – formerly of the Sunday Telegraph among other right-wing titles – as editor of the Today programme, is consistent with a broader editorial shift at the BBC, which anyway has always tended to lean towards governmental perspectives in its output.

Both these alleged failings though – the erroneous balancing complained of by centrists, and the misreporting and overt hostility complained of by the Labour left – in my view reflect a deeper problem with the BBC’s editorial culture.

The anger and disaffection with the BBC is a symptom of a broader political crisis that is extremely difficult for the BBC to navigate editorially. As an organisational thoroughly embedded within the British establishment, it has lost its bearings as that establishment has slipped into crisis. For the most influential figures in the BBC editorial machine, the political spectrum consists of well-meaning, privileged liberals, and more authentically representative right-wing populists.

Whilst at one stage the BBC could orientate itself broadly towards centrist opinion, an anxiety about appearing “out of touch” led some time ago to a conscious effort to engage “extreme” opinion; which in practice has meant some clumsy dalliances with the populist, and even far, right – hence why Nigel Farage became such a popular choice for BBC bookers. The outcome of the EU referendum has only strengthened this tendency, and the political movements to which it has granted exposure.

Most recently this has led to sympathetic interviews with supporters of Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist. The left, meanwhile, is still not being treated as a legitimate political force, despite electoral gains. Where this downward spiral will lead, nobody knows, but if the BBC is serious about maintaining its legitimacy it needs to at least start taking its critics on the left and its audiences – past and present – more seriously.

Tom Mills is a lecturer in sociology at Aston University and is the author of ‘The BBC: Myth of a Public Service’