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Channel profile

BBC News

What BBC News chose to cover, what it left out, and how its agenda compares with the rest of the roster.

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How much the agenda changed

Moderate
33.1% day-to-day change

This channel keeps some regular areas of focus while changing enough to follow the daily news cycle.

Stories this channel missed

Several missed
46 missed stories recorded

Number of times this broadcaster did not cover stories that several other channels covered.

Time spent on news stories

79% of analysed airtime

154h 54m 51s of this channel's 195h 45m analysed was identified news stories — ad breaks, weather, sport and trails count as “not news”.

Recent broadcasts

View all BBC News broadcasts →

The latest broadcasts behind this channel's analysis — open one to see its annotated timeline.

Friday 16 October 2026 · 21:00 BST

The Context

The broadcast began with White House press secretary Katie Zakaria leaving the job after just five days. The move followed a bruising start, including a first press briefing lasting 14 minutes and questions over her legal credentials, including a Fox News exchange about whether she had passed the bar exam. President Trump said she had been treated badly by the media and that he told her to reconsider staying in the role. The programme reported she was the shortest-serving White House press secretary in history, and later a Washington correspondent said a White House official described her as transitioning out of the role, effectively fired.

3 stories · 30m
Friday 16 October 2026 · 15:00 BST

Verified Live

European leaders rallied around Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a Brussels summit amid a deepening divide with Donald Trump, who said Zelenskyy was harder to deal with than Vladimir Putin and called the resumption of Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries a disgrace. Russia again targeted Ukrainian infrastructure overnight, killing two people in Kharkiv and hitting a logistics facility in Odesa; Ukraine confirmed attacks on Russian oil refineries in Omsk and Ukhta and another Russian data centre. Zelenskyy asked for more air defences and said the Starlink Starshield system was still not back to full speed. In an interview, Democratic Congressman Gabe Amo discussed a Reuters report that the White House ordered Starlink and Starshield to be throttled, which the White House denies, and later spoke about the US midterms, affordability, oversight and election integrity.

4 stories · 30m
Friday 16 October 2026 · 12:00 BST

BBC News Now

The broadcast led with the war in Ukraine, reporting round-the-clock Russian attacks as President Zelensky attended an EU summit in Brussels to seek more support for energy and air defences. It reported at least two killed in Kharkiv and others injured in a drone attack on a shopping centre in Sumy, after a supermarket was hit in Odesa, while Lutsk lost all power overnight and Lviv also came under attack. Reports said Ukraine had run out of Patriot interceptors and that the Starshield satellite link had been running slow on Thursday. President Trump again blamed President Zelensky for civilian deaths and criticised Ukrainian strikes on refineries, and a correspondent noted Trump had said it was easier to deal with President Putin than with Zelensky. At the summit, Zelensky thanked EU leaders as real leaders and said Ukraine wanted to end the war as quickly as possible but saw no signals from Russia that it was ready. US and Western officials told Reuters that a political decision in Washington had slowed Ukraine's military satellite network, though the administration denied any such presidential request, and European leaders discussed support and frozen Russian assets amid reported US proposals.

3 stories · 30m
Friday 16 October 2026 · 06:00 BST

BBC News

At least three children and one adult were killed after a 16-year-old opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. Police said the suspect shot into a vehicle outside the school before entering the building, and an armed member of the public pursued him inside and shot him dead. The victims included children aged five, eight and 11 and a teacher, while a seven-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to hospital with critical injuries. Schools across Bend closed and a vigil was held; police said the shooter's name, motive and connection to the school were still under investigation, and a correspondent noted this was another school shooting against a backdrop of 235 school shootings last year and 149 so far this year.

5 stories · 30m

On screen

Stills are sampled automatically at 60-second intervals. Where shown, the still is the nearest available frame from the relevant broadcast segment and is included to show what was on screen during that part of the broadcast. A still may not correspond to the exact second of a quoted phrase.

BBC News, The Context, 16 October 2026
BBC News, The Context, 16 October 2026
BBC News, The Context, 16 October 2026
BBC News, Verified Live, 16 October 2026
BBC News, Verified Live, 16 October 2026
BBC News, Verified Live, 16 October 2026
BBC News, Verified Live, 16 October 2026
BBC News, BBC News Now, 16 October 2026

Repeatedly missed categories

Categories where this broadcaster often missed stories that other channels covered.

economy 5 of 14 gaps

This channel missed a relatively high number of stories in this category.

Missed topics:
UK Economy (Tuesday 13 October 2026)Pensions (Tuesday 15 September 2026)UK Economy (Friday 11 September 2026)UK Economy (Wednesday 2 September 2026)British Steel (Thursday 16 July 2026)
society 2 of 5 gaps

This channel missed a relatively high number of stories in this category.

Missed topics:
Grenfell Tower (Wednesday 30 September 2026)Jason Arday (Monday 17 August 2026)

Category trend (last 30 days)

How this channel's coverage changed by category over the past month.

Flagged quotes over time

Contested and charged quotes per hour of analysed airtime. Flagged quotes reflect the language this broadcaster aired, not a judgement of its accuracy.

Distinctive vocabulary

Words and phrases this channel used far more often than the rest of UK TV news over the last 30 days. Distinctive vocabulary describes word choice relative to other channels, not accuracy or bias — terms reflect the stories a channel covered as much as how it framed them.

  1. elections looming 20×+ more often · 47 uses
    “with America's midterm elections looming” BBC News · Sunday 11 October 2026
  2. techniques 12× more often · 24 uses
    “in that process you really get to appreciate the skills the techniques that go into making it now” The World Today with Maryam... · Thursday 15 October 2026
  3. investigative 7.9× more often · 42 uses
    “within the IDF's investigative system but what about all the other cases we found? I put the” The World Today with Maryam... · Thursday 15 October 2026
  4. examine 6.1× more often · 35 uses
    “We examine the ethical challenges facing newsrooms” Verified Live · Friday 16 October 2026
  5. humanitarian 5.3× more often · 52 uses
    “Taiz in order to assess the humanitarian situation as the heavy clashes there continue.” The World Today with Maryam... · Thursday 15 October 2026
  6. stakes 4.9× more often · 47 uses
    “The stakes are high for” BBC News · Sunday 11 October 2026
  7. professor 4.8× more often · 61 uses
    “through that. That's Kathleen Bartzen Culver, Professor of Journalism Ethics at the” Newscast · Monday 12 October 2026
  8. escalation 4.5× more often · 51 uses
    “Saudi ships not the other ships but the escalation not only inside Yemen but again” BBC News · Friday 16 October 2026

News agenda by category

How this channel divided its coverage compared with the cross-channel average.

international 39h 6m 8s (25.2%) vs 13.1% avg
Channel
Global
politics 24h 9m 45s (15.6%) vs 23.4% avg
Channel
Global
war 18h 15m 24s (11.8%) vs 5.9% avg
Channel
Global
environment 12h 30m 28s (8.1%) vs 7.7% avg
Channel
Global
crime 11h 32m 49s (7.4%) vs 10.8% avg
Channel
Global
media 10h 46m 51s (7.0%) vs 6.7% avg
Channel
Global
sport 8h 57m 9s (5.8%) vs 6.0% avg
Channel
Global
science 7h 11m 22s (4.6%) vs 3.2% avg
Channel
Global
economy 5h 39m 57s (3.7%) vs 5.2% avg
Channel
Global
health 5h 11m 18s (3.3%) vs 5.7% avg
Channel
Global
other 3h 47m 34s (2.4%) vs 2.6% avg
Channel
Global
transport 2h 46m 21s (1.8%) vs 2.1% avg
Channel
Global
immigration 2h 43m 55s (1.8%) vs 4.7% avg
Channel
Global
society 2h 23m 37s (1.5%) vs 2.9% avg
Channel
Global

Timeline

This channel's topic coverage day by day — what it ran, and how much time each story got.

Friday 16 October 2026

Topics covered

crime

School Shooting

17m 44s airtime

war

Ukraine

23m 46s airtime

media

White House

6m 45s airtime

other

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

4m 31s airtime

politics

Albania Protests

4m 20s airtime

politics

Devolution

10m 39s airtime

war

Ukraine War

17m 22s airtime

politics

US Midterms

12m 24s airtime

international

West Bank

15m 10s airtime

war

Yemen

6m 40s airtime

Stories missed

No coverage gaps for this channel on this date.