Inside the BBC’s Millbank Studios, just across the road from parliament, final dress rehearsals are taking place for the launch of Politics Live: the BBC’s attempt to answer the question of what a daily political television show should look like in the era of social media.
Guests sit around a table in a bright, buzzy studio influenced by the US TV political show Morning Joe. Activists and journalists, who have been drafted in as pundits for the rehearsal, get stuck into passionate arguments that will never be broadcast. Every so often a klaxon goes off to signify a breaking news tweet, while the host, Jo Coburn, debates with producers whether a camera angle is flattering.
“It’s going to be more discursive and conversational,” she says in between rehearsals. “We are still going to scrutinise the politicians, but there are different ways of doing this.”
Part of this is a recognition that there are now “more people and a more diverse range of people” interested in politics than before – even if they don’t care for the ups and downs at Westminster.
Coburn, who will be hosting the lunchtime BBC2 programme four days a week, says this could mean that the show chooses to focus on policies that spark public debate rather than following every government announcement on issues such as Brexit: “Whether it’s animal rights or marijuana oil, these are things people feel they have got something to say about. Maybe we won’t relentlessly follow every incremental change in a way that we might have done.”
The new show – a replacement for the longrunning Daily Politics, produced by most of the same staff – launches on Monday with guests including Amber Rudd and Emily Thornberry. The change is partly a result of BBC budget cuts and partly a recognition by the broadcaster’s new head of live political programming, Rob Burley, that the format needed a rethink – especially as Twitter increasingly shapes the political agenda, potentially decreasing the need for appointment-to-view programmes.
“Our inspiration is US programmes like Morning Joe, but also things like the sensibility of podcasts, where people have time to talk about things a bit more,” says Burley.
Making a politics show during the 2000s and early 2010s was a simpler task because there was a relatively settled perception of political debate – and people often weren’t that interested anyway. Coburn refers to Andrew Neil, who will host a weekly extended Politics Live edition centred around prime minister’s questions: “Andrew always used to make the joke that people aren’t talking about this down the Dog and Duck. Well, now they are.”
During the rehearsal there are nods to the changing times – guests have been given reusable plastic cups to replace the Daily Politics’ branded mugs – but the debate remains focused on policy, even if the chatty guest format now has more in common with Loose Women than Newsnight.
When Politics Live was first announced, there was speculation that it was an attempt to attract younger viewers. Given television’s ageing demographic, that really means aiming to increase the number of people watching who are under the age of 65. With this in mind, films for the programme will be packaged for distribution on social media, making it partially a vehicle for creating online content.
Other politics shows are taking a similar tack. The Sunday political shows – traditionally a source for Monday newspaper stories – have already had their own mini-reshuffle: Robert Peston’s ITV programme has switched to a midweek slot after failing to dent Andrew Marr’s morning viewing figures, the BBC has cancelled Sunday Politics altogether, and Sky’s Sophy Ridge changed to an early 9am slot in a bid to steal a march on the BBC.
“Television news to me is feeling a little left behind … the way we present our product hasn’t been moving,” says Deborah Turness, the former ITV News boss now working to relaunch the satellite station Euronews for US media giant NBC. “We need to discover a new way to engage all audiences. That does mean we need to respect and reflect all viewpoints; nationalists and populists and those on the liberal side all together.”
Her station is launching its own Brussels-based daily programme called Raw Politics on Monday. The nightly show – which will combine political interviews with a pan-European phone-in programme – has booked Tony Blair, Nigel Farage and Yanis Varoufakis, alongside Jimmie Åkesson, the far-right leader in Sweden and associate of Steve Bannon.
“As the people of Europe move in any given direction, it is our job to not filter out any viewpoint,” she says, pledging to give a voice to “inconvenient or uncomfortable” views that don’t fit with the perspective of liberal journalists. “This isn’t a platform for bigotry, this is about looking at where we can agree and build consensus.”
This plays into the persistent criticism of broadcast political coverage, namely that even as the old certainties of British political journalism have been challenged by the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the Brexit vote, political programmes have continued to draw on a relatively small pool of pundits.
Back at the BBC studios, Burley says that while “previous iteration of the Daily Politics was very much of the traditional Westminster world”, the new programme will be looking to bring in guests from outside the traditional boundaries. But it is unclear where the line should be drawn – should figures with large online audiences, such as those associated with the alt-right and conspiracy sites such as Infowars, appear?
“We have to be careful when we’re talking about views that are quite at one end of the spectrum, or are controversial,” he says. “There’d have to be a very good editorial reason as to why.”
Politics Live will be broadcast on BBC2 every weekday at 12.15, with a longer episode from 11.15 on Wednesdays.