The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) took its present form on 1 January 1927 when John Reith became its first Director-General. Reith stated that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism in its broadcasting. Allegations that the corporation lacks impartial and objective journalism have been made by observers on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Another area of criticism has been the mandatory licence fee, as commercial competitors argue the licence fee is unfair and limits their ability to compete with the BBC.
20th century Thatcher government Accusations of a left-wing bias were often made against the corporation by members of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Conservative government. Steve Barnett wrote in The Observer in 2001 that in 1983, Stuart Young, the "accountant and brother of one of Thatcher's staunchest cabinet allies", David Young, was appointed as BBC chairman. After him, in 1986, came Marmaduke Hussey, a "brother-in-law of another Cabinet Minister.... According to the then-Tory party chairman, Norman Tebbit, Hussey was appointed "to get in there and sort the place out". In 2006, Tebbit said: "The BBC was always against Lady Thatcher".
Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, said in 2010, "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago [as a production trainee, in 1979], there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left. The organisation did struggle then with impartiality".
21st century BBC News forms a major department of the corporation, and receives many complaints of bias. The Tufton Street-based Centre for Policy Studies (a free market orientated think tank) stated, "Since at least the mid-1980s, the Corporation has often been criticised for a perceived bias against those on the centre-right of politics". Similar allegations have been made by past and present employees such as Antony Jay, former editor of the Today programme Rod Liddle, and former correspondent Robin Aitken.
Speaking to journalists at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in 2009, Jeremy Hunt, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, claimed that BBC News needed more people from the centre-right: "I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the Corporation tend to be from the centre-left. That's why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias".
A study by Cardiff University academics, which was funded by the BBC Trust, was published in August 2013 and examined the BBC's coverage of a broad range of issues. One of the findings was the dominance of party political sources; in coverage of immigration, the EU and religion, they accounted for 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in 2012. The data also showed that the Conservative Party received significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In 2012, Conservative leader and then Prime Minister David Cameron outnumbered Labour leader Ed Miliband in appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15), and governing Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15).
A former director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, criticised the BBC as part of a "Westminster conspiracy" to maintain the British political system.
Before the 2019 general election, the BBC was criticised for biased coverage that favoured the governing Conservative Party. For instance, issue was taken with a clip used from a BBC Question Time leader's special episode in which the part showing audience laughter at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's response to a certain question was edited out. BBC officials addressed the issue and admitted their mistake. Furthermore, the BBC was accused of subjecting Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson to a gruelling interview by Andrew Neil but not requiring Johnson to go through the same and of arranging it beforehand. The Guardian columnist Owen Jones also took issue with the BBC rescinding its policy of not letting Johnson be interviewed by Marr unless he went through one with Neil. The BBC defended its decision to waive the requirement by citing national interest amidst a terror attack in London on 29 November 2019.
Some commentators, such as Peter Oborne, have argued that there is a culture of "client journalism" which has flourished in recent years due to a closeness between the BBC and the governing Conservative Party, which has led to their bias in favour of the establishment. For example, from 2008 to 2017, Robbie Gibb was head of the BBC Westminster and therefore in charge of the BBC's political programming. His brother, Nick Gibb, is a Conservative MP and Minister for Schools, and Robbie Gibb took a job with Theresa May as Director of Communications immediately after resigning from the BBC. The incoming Director-General as of September 2020, Tim Davie, is a former Conservative Party councillor. In addition, the new Chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, has donated over £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001. Among journalists, BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg and ITV Political Editor Robert Peston have also been criticised for perceived "client journalism", as well as uncritically repeating stories from anonymous government sources as news, which later transpired to be false.
Racism The BBC has also been accused of racism. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2008, Lenny Henry said that ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved" in television comedy and that little had changed at senior levels in terms of ethnic representation during his 32 years in television. Jimmy McGovern, in a 2007 interview, called the BBC "one of the most racist institutions in England".
In 2001, BBC Director-General Greg Dyke said that the BBC was "hideously white" and acknowledged difficulties with "race relations". He acknowledged that it was having difficulties in retaining minority staff and outlined plans towards solving those problems.
Rageh Omaar, the Somali-born British journalist and former BBC war correspondent who reported the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, called BBC a "white man's club" after he resigned to join Al-Jazeera in 2006. Later, in 2007, while being interviewed by Hannah Pool of The Guardian, he accused the BBC of classism too.
The BBC, which is legally obliged to be an equal opportunities employer, had a 2012 target for 12.5% of its staff to be from a black or minority ethnic background (12% at 31 January 2009). The BBC's buildings are largely based in urban areas with a more diverse demography than the country as a whole (30% ethnic minority population in London and about 15% in the Manchester/Salford area), and the 12.5% figure is over 4% higher than the current percentage of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom as a whole. However, many of its ethnic minority members of staff have been argued to be cleaners and security guards, not presenters and programme makers. The Guardian reported, "The BBC has pledged to increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people on air by more than 40% over the next three years and almost double the number of senior managers from those groups who work at the corporation by 2020".
In September 2019, the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit upheld a complaint that television presenter Naga Munchetty breached their editorial guidelines in her criticism of racist comments made by US President Donald Trump about four US representatives. That decision was criticised by the BBC's black and ethnic minority (BAME) network, and 44 British actors, broadcasters and journalists of BAME origin wrote a letter to ask for the BBC to reconsider its decision. Ofcom initiated a parallel assessment of the decision. Her fellow cohost, Dan Walker, was also named in the initial complaint, but no action was taken by the BBC against him since the complainant's follow-up complaint focused solely on Munchetty. In response, Tony Hall, the Director-General of the BBC, intervened and reversed the decision to uphold the complaint on 30 September.
In July 2020, a BBC reporter used the word nigger in a report on the attack of a 21-year-old NHS worker and musician known as K-Dogg while reporting on what the assailants said during the attack. This led to complaints to the BBC about why it had not bleeped that word out or said "the N-word". It also led to questions about why a white person was even allowed to say that word. A few days later, the BBC also received criticism after airing the offensive language used by historian Lucy Worsley when quoting former American president Abraham Lincoln, on her documentary American History's Biggest Fibs which aired on BBC Two on 1 August 2020. The documentary first aired on BBC Four in 2019. The BBC has defended the use of the word nigger in response on 4 August 2020, saying it wanted to report the word allegedly used in the attack of K-Dogg, and this decision was supported by the family of the victim, but the corporation accepted that it did cause offence. On 8 August, Sideman, real name David Whitely, said he had decided to leave BBC Radio 1Xtra because of the use of the racial slur and the defence of it. The next day, 9 August, the BBC apologised over the use of nigger and said a mistake was made. Its director general Tony Hall said he now accepts the corporation should have taken a different approach.
Antisemitism In August 2024, the BBC faced accusations of "gaslighting" more than 200 Jewish staff members, contributors, and suppliers over its handling of detailed complaints about antisemitism at the BBC. The group's complaints included a letter addressed to BBC Chair Samir Shah, urging an investigation into what they warned could constitute a serious institutional racism problem. Shah dismissed the calls for an investigation, commending instead the BBC for having an "inclusive" environment.
In 2025, Lord Mann, the Prime Minister's independent adviser on antisemitism, said that senior BBC leaders including Director-General Tim Davie had repeatedly turned down his offers to provide antisemitism training. Since taking on his role in 2019, Lord Mann had visited the BBC and made the offer on three occasions, but had been rejected each time. Lord Mann accused the BBC of an "arrogance at the top" and a failure to take seriously allegations of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in its reporting.
2026 Holocaust coverage oversights: In January 2026, the BBC was criticized for separate editorial oversights in its Holocaust coverage. During Holocaust Memorial Day segments on BBC Breakfast on 27 January, presenters failed to explicitly identify Jewish victims among the “six million people murdered by the Nazi regime,” prompting criticism from advocacy groups and commentators; the BBC acknowledged the error and announced it would issue corrections online. Earlier, a BBC One The Repair Shop Christmas special about the Kindertransport did not mention that most of the children evacuated were Jewish; following criticism, the BBC added a clarification to the episode’s iPlayer description noting that the Kindertransport primarily involved Jewish children.
Homophobia The Independent reported the findings of a University of Leeds study in March 2006, which accused the BBC of being "institutionally homophobic" towards "lesbian and gays, references to them, or related issues". The Leeds researchers found that out of 168 hours of programming, only 38 minutes (0.4%) dealt with gay and lesbian issues, and that 32 minutes (80%) was deemed negative. Focus groups used in the study accused the BBC of being the worst broadcaster in terms of gay and lesbian issues and their portrayal of the LGBT community.