At 12 months dominated by covid 19, how it accelerated underlying trends and created new ones in the media year. Hello. What a year its been. I hope you and your family are doing 0k. Welcome to our look back at the media year in 2020. And if theres one word i dont think weve heard enough of this year, its unprecedented. When it comes to the media, the pandemic has had a cataclysmic effect. Local and national media, especially those funded by advertising, have had one long nightmare. Newspapers have faced yet more misery and decline. Publishing groups, broadcasters, and advertisers have made big cuts. Yet demand for quality news and entertainment has soared. Back in the spring, broadcasters in particularfaced a huge new set of challenges how to deliver and produce news safely. Britains coronavirus crisis. Coronavirus. In a crisis. Coronavirus. Its horrible. The pandemic. Especially one in the information age. Hand sanitiser. Trusted news becomes a precious commodity. Social distancing. For which there is high demand. Coronavirus. Britain has a range of regulated Public Service broadcasters doing their best to produce world class journalism. Ratings for news programmes across all channels are soaring, with many presenters broadcasting from home. Published data showing that transporting news across the country. But actually producing broadcast news is exceptionally hard in a global pandemic. I am just going to script a line about Northern Ireland there to put in at this point. Innovation is the only solution and there is plenty of it about. The nhs scheme only covers england and Northern Ireland. Here, correspondentjudith moritz is at home in Manchester Working on a bbc news piece with her cameraman and editor, rob wood, who is nearly 30 miles away in derbyshire. The nhs scheme only covers england. News reports are the result of teamwork between correspondents, producers, camera operators and studio editors. Oh, and children too who can make their presence felt when correspondents work from home. Keeping both staff and contributors save is a priority. Safe is a priority. Video interviews has become the norm as of late. Keeping two metres away from interviewees can be hard, but boom mics allow sound to be captured safely in high quality. Good morning, its seven oclock, the headlines this morning. And its notjust television, kitchens and lounges have been converted into makeshift radio studios, like those of the today programme. Heres the bbcs David Sillito using a duvet to improve sound quality. Furnishings can absorb sound and reduce echo. I am working on a piece with david hockney. Apps such as skype and zoom are replacing face to face daily editorial meetings. What do you think about using that clip we have already laid down . We can do that. Broadcasting is always a technical adventure, but right now, more than ever. Amol rajan in Central London working with producer elizabeth in kent and editorjonathan in north london. Always remember, news. Is a team effort. With lockdown, many tv and Film Productions inevitably came to a halt. That caused hardship, not just for the artists, but for the crews, the engineers, the makeup artists and everyone involved in production. Thankfully, by the autumn, many of those productions were up and running again, as my colleague, David Sillito discovered. David its been a while. Eastenders returned to our screens after a covid related break, but social distancing has rather changed filming. For instance, lets look again at that kiss. What you cant see is whats actually between them. There is a screen in between us which you cant see because of the way its shot behind the railings. The railing is covering the fact that the screen is there, so we are kissing the screen. It looks like we can be as close as we need to be because of the screen. And here, no screen, but a deceptive camera angle. Theres also another solution, bring your own partner. Weve had partners bring in their Real Partners for kissing scenes. So its a total new way of working. The tv and Film Industry has had to think on its feet to get production back to almost normal, but for the soaps, coronation street, emmerdale and eastenders, its been a challenge. For local print newspapers, disruption mostly means terminal decline. Despite a few scraps from the likes of google and facebook, the market for local news in this country is broken. There is huge demand for trusted local information, but for now, a lack of willingness to actually pay for it. There were big redundancies at National Titles like the mirror and the guardian, too. Titles like the london Evening Standard and metro which depend heavily on commuters were particularly badly hit. But there was plenty of exceptional journalism this year. One of the scoops of the year was a Co Production between the guardian and the mirror. I spoke to the mirrors editor, alison phillips, about how breaking a massive story in a pandemic isnt exactly glamorous. Back in the summer, we did the Dominic Cummings story, which was one of those Great Stories that you live to do. And it was late on a friday night that we finally got enough to get it over the line to get it up online at seven and then in print the next morning. So there was me in my spare room, and then there was our head of news, who was sat by his sons bunk beds working. And our night editor there in his flat. And it was like, this is not how it looks in the movies, is it . When you try to break this important story. I would love to get your side of that story. This was a big exclusive that you shared with the guardian. We spoke to kath viner. We spoke to pippa crerar, your political editor, about it. Just tell us again why you ended up working together with the guardian on that. We had a call really early on, and i think as the guardian had as well, they had gone to number ten and we were being completely stonewalled. You know, as you know, you need to be absolutely certain when you go. And the idea that we werent getting any response from them just made it really difficult, but we kept on working on it. Obviously, we havejeremy armstrong, our reporter in the northeast was on it for several weeks, and photographers, and we were looking at all sorts of different. Trying to patch it all together, and then pippa heard that the guardian were also looking at having different sources as well. And then by bringing it together, and i spoke to kath viner, and we knew that together, we had enough to get it over the line. Did you deliberately hold back some details to give you a really strong splash over several days . In other words, did you drip feed the story . No, not intentionally. In that there were some bits of the story that we needed more work on. Just to be clear, did you have any agreements with the guardian about what they would do and what you would do . Yeah, completely. So we had to make sure that we were going with the same lines on the same day at exactly the same time. Alison phillips of the mirror titles there. Lets turn now from traditional media to an area that has seen exponential growth. In recent years, an alternative media economy has sprung up, one in which tens of thousands of entrepreneurs become so called creators, producers and presenters of their own content, their own media. This alternative universe is of course youtube. And in the past year, one of its biggest stars, joe wicks, has become part of the daily routine for millions of us. Lets go good morning, everybody, and welcome back to pe withjoe. Todays work out is another wheel of fortune work out. Whilejoe wicks became an even bigger National Star than he already was, countless others are finding fame and fortune as youtubers. I spoke to youtubes managing directorfor the uk and ireland to get inside this revolution. What lockdown and the pandemic and the impact of the lockdown confirmed for us was something that we have known for a long period of time which is youtube is where the nation comes to watch content that they love. You know, what happened during the pandemic was some of those things came much more into the public sphere than the private sphere for us all, and they became really shared moments. What youre talking about really is the creation of a whole new economy. Youre talking about a huge number of people, some of whom become very famous or rich, some of whom dont, but hope to and also businesses, which are essentially youtube phenomenon so this is a new economy. Thats absolutely right. Its a critical part in my view of the uks current creative economy. It is, as you say, it includes individuals making very significant money, there will be names in the uk, ksi, zoella, that people will know of from people who have built their brands, their personality, and ultimately their business on youtube as a platform. But there are also people who set out as businesses. If i think, in the uk, grm daily began as grime daily. Grm, the holy grail of black British Music. Started by two young guys who had a passion for a particular genre of British Music and have built themselves into what is today the heartbeat of british youth culture, or a completely different audience, global cycling network, another example of a channel begun by two guys, again around the kitchen table, this time in bath. All you need to do is make a direct connection with an audience that shares your passion, thats as interested about the topics that youre interested in, and you can build and shape those audiences. 0ur gaming creators, our female gaming creators, a young woman who is called yammy, or her channel name is yammy, yasmin uddin, whos from leeds. My son dante has been requesting me to play this game for a month. Every day he says to me. Please can you play the Henry Stickmin collection . Shes a young woman who has built a hugely successful gaming channel. She had a child at 16, that would largely speaking rule you out of a career in mainstream media, traditional media, but it hasnt held her back at all. Any one of our creators would be able to open their analytics and see whats happened to pricing in which market, where did their viewership come from . That empowers people to make informed decisions. You know, hes not as famous asjoe wicks, but on our platform, hes just as successful asjoe wicks, is a young guy from folkestone and hythe called matt morsia. The more subscribers i have, ultimately the more i can command in terms of sponsorship. If i go to a company and say i have 1. 5 million subscribers, i can ask for more money and get a bigger sponsored video. Hes produced multiple video explaining how much hes made,s either from an individual video, how much hes made overall. I forget, like, that money, that revenue from this video, thats more money than ive made in an entire year as a teacher. One of the other areas of media making a lot of people very rich is gaming. Gaming was one of the big winners of the pandemic. Stuck indoors, millions of us travelled into Virtual Worlds limited only by the speed of our broadband connections. Hes hit his head. Call of duty, the First Person Shooter video game, isnt merely an experience these days. For a growing army of players, its the pinnacle of a career. That includes 21 year old sean 0connor from glasgow. A bit like a top footballer, he plays for the london royal ravens, one of the best teams in the international league. Hes just signed a six figure deal through his manager, and often trains for eight hours a day. I feel like gaming has a thing for everyone, streaming, youtube, there is competing, theres casual gaming, and i think there is a lot that even the casual or even older or younger can all play and have a good time, and you can do it from the comfort of your room. Dont eat the food product gaming today is more a Global Social network than a digital version of monopoly or snakes and ladders. Global revenues have leapt from under 20 billion annually a decade ago to a projected 200 billion within the next three years. The growth in the uk alone was astounding, even before lockdown led to a huge surge in playing. Smartphones and consoles are driving that growth. And britain is benefiting. These vast buildings are now creative studios deployed for making films or games. If ever there was evidence of new media supplanting old, its here. A former print work site for the daily mail in 0xfordshire, now owned by rebellion, a british media giant that makes games such as evil genius 2, sniper elite, and this one, zombie army 4. One of the key technologies for us in the Games Industry is digital distribution across a global population. So the more people that we can connect to with our games, the more people that can play them, and then itjust becomes a challenge of discovery. A key component though is exporting our creativity worldwide, and the audience for our Computer Games is as broad as we can reach with the internet. It may look like a blank canvas, but sites like this one 50 miles west of london will help video gaming dominate the attention economy. New technologies are making even the most complex games universally accessible. Multiplayer titles made gaming a social experience, and whereas books, films, tv shows and podcasts all have a single plot with an ending, its in the very nature of gaming for the same content to go in countless attention grabbing directions. These 3d worlds are great and growing business. New technology is converting gaming from an alternative reality to a way of life. Gamings Remarkable Growth is being driven, like the rest of media, by the power of the internet. In the uk, regulators are belatedly trying to limit the dominance of a few tech giants, having announced the creation of a Digital Markets unit in just the past few weeks. In america, the department ofjustice is also on the offensive, taking google to court in the next year. Indeed, what we are seeing is nothing less then a global battle is nothing less than a global battle for the soul of the internet. A cold war is under way between the worlds leading two superpowers. Though its been little noticed this year by voters dealing with a global pandemic. What started out as a battle over trade escalated into threats over the Exchange Rate for the un and is now a major conflict. As ever, in battles between ideologically conflicting superpowers, america and china are vying for technological supremacy. Two companies illustrate that battle. Huawei, with its dominance of 5g, and tiktok, a young entertainment platform already boasting over 800 million users. Tiktok is owned by bytedance, now worth 100 billion. Its founder, zhang yiming, has pledged deep cooperation with the Chinese Communist party. That is why politicians of all stripes in america see tiktok, like huawei, as a National Security threat, giving china access to the precious data and attention of american citizens. Earlier this year, President Trump demanded it be sold to a non chinese company, and that the us treasury get a cut. Its unprecedented in the us, but such assertions of sovereignty are already Standard Practice in china where platforms like youtube and whatsapp are blocked, along with foreign sources of news and religious instruction. Religious instruction, and where the web is a tool of surveillance. In a sense, then, President Trump merely borrowed from chinas playbook, and these new methods of control go further than just the us and china. In india, for example, Narendra Modis government has banned tiktok and other chinese owned mobile apps. Other states have used various social media controls monitoring all censorship. Tiktok is notjust a platform for video pranks, it proves theres a battle for the soul of the internet in an era of rising nationalism, where governments say that countries, and not companies, should control the web. With almost half of humanity not yet online, how and if this big digital chill spreads could shape the 21st century. You are watching a review of the media year here on bbc news. Its good to have you with us. As ever, the british royalfamily were all over the headlines. At the start of the year, prince harrys war on tabloid culture led to the departure of him, meghan and their son from official duties. There was a multi Million Pound deal with netflix and a sympathetic book about them serialised in the times. All the while, prince harry and meghan are pursuing legal action against several of britains newspapers. There will be headlines aplenty from court in the coming year. In october, extraordinary allegations re surfaced that Martin Bashirs astonishing interview with Princess Diana from 25 years ago was partly obtained through forged bank statements. Bashir, who is recovering from a major operation, hasnt spoken, but tim davie, the director general of the bbc, has announced an independent investigation led by a formerjudge. One of the central figures in that investigation will be davies predecessor, tony hall, director of news when the diana interview aired. He bowed out after seven years as director general this summer, and is his exit interview, he addressed rows over the n word and rule britannia, and suggested ways the bbc might need to change in a world ripped asunder by technology. Eight years ago, deep editorial failures over coverage ofjimmy savile and lord mcalpine led to the resignation of a director general of the bbc after just 5a days. Chris patten, then chairman of the bbc, sent for tony hall, a former director of bbc news, who directed a creative turnaround at the royal opera house. Im standing on the edge. After steadying the ship, halls big challenge was to negotiate a new charter for the bbc. Central to his deal was the bbc taking on a welfare payment for free tv licenses for the over 75s. Hall considered this nuclear. Did you threaten to resig