who have had it publishers who have had it pretty hard in the last ten to 15 years. ten to 15 years in any case. i read earlier that newsquest made a £45 million profit last year. you ve cut jobs. you re a very lean company. your us parent is the massive news is the massive news chain gannett, which owns usa today, amongst other things. why do you think you couldn t cope with the bbcjust doing a bit more local news online? well, we run a lean organisation. it s £45 million, actually. wasn t £45 million. i think it was £30 million. but yes, we are a profitable organisation, but we need to be profitable to sustain, to sustainjournalism. you know, without profits there is no sustainable model to localjournalism. we ve always tried to keep our investment in local reporters. where we have made cost reductions is more in the management and production roles. 0k, alice enders, how tough is the climate for local news economically? well, there s no doubt. that the top line revenues of local
of this corruption. - no, no, we ve been- negatively affected by it. and the fifa lawyers under infantino- are very quick- to argue and saying, no, no, we re not- the organisation benefiting from this organised crime. we re we re the organisation harmed by it the doj agreed - and over $200 million was given to fifa. so, why do they cooperate with us? look, maybe one answer is because they re greatl 0k. well, fifa will be showcased again in qatar over the next few weeks, and we re going to come back to the practicalities of covering qatar later. but let s go to this story. you know, last week the bbc announced that it was going to radically change the sound of its local radio stations in england. programmes after 2pm on weekdays will be shared across multiple stations. various mps said the bbc is doing a disservice
story about sports reporting, i mean, is itjust that in an in a sense, we re seeing bigger shifts in what sports reporting must pay attention to? you know, you look at foreign investment into the premier league, for example, problematic sponsorship deals, that sort of thing. it s just about much more than what s on the pitch these days. absolutely. i mean, i spent a week in qatar back injuly reporting on the build up to the world cup, and middle eastern politics is now inextricably tied up with top level football. you ve got qatar, not only the world cup, but paris saint germain. you ve got abu dhabi, which effectively owns manchester city, and more recently, you ve got saudi arabia, which owns newcastle united. i mean, it s very feasible that in five years time, the three clubs battling out at the end of the champions league stage are going to be abu dhabi, saudi arabia, qatar. it s impossible to sort of put all this aside as a football fan. 0k. 0k, miles, well, you ve made this four
are you making, what does happen next? are you making the case to 0fcom, who potentially, of course, could stop the bbc from doing this if it wanted to? we actually think there is a case we absolutely think there is a case for 0fcom to intervene and i have to say we re disappointed by the passivity of that regulator, and we think they left the door open in 2019 when they let the bbc expand substantially into scotland by starting up a dedicated scottish channel. i think the bbc now employs more newsjournalists in scotland than any other media organisation. thatjust seems unbalanced to me. we hope that 0fcom will awake from its slumber and do something about this. 0k, thank you both. i want to turn back as we re coming towards the end of the programme to the world cup in qatar and kind of assessments of it as a media event. i mean, beth fisher, clearly you re not going despite being a journalist who presumably would have gone in if it was somewhere else. are you planning, for example, to
and also the way that the trans community in particular are being vilified by government and the media as well, for me, just stinks of kind of hypocrisy. and forfor me, really, the real kind of, you know, example of that is the way we re talking about qatar and back home here in the uk. we re having the issues. your own ducks in a row first. exactly. 0k. well, and miles, you know, you made i think it shows that i sportswashing is still a a strategy that people gravitate towards. - if you are qatar, what other options do you have? - you re a little peninsula. you re very wealthy, - but you have no goodwill towards you in the - international community. sport remains. despite all the negative pr, we re seeing, - an incredibly powerful way| for relatively small nations to make themselves big players on the international stage. - that s all we ve got time for this week. thank you so much to all my guests