Complaints to BBC rise by 9% over past year

[BGonaSTICK]

Complaints at the BBC rose by 9% last year, totalling 150,000, according to a BBC report.

The corporation says the increase is mainly due to technologies like email making it easier for viewers and listeners to "air their views".

But in the annual BBC Outreach report, the corporation said its Editorial Complaints Unit had failed to reach targets on responding to complaints.

The report said: "The ECU aims to respond to 80% of complaints within 20 days (or 35 days in more complicated cases), but failed to meet this target." The ECU dealt with 206 complaints in 2005/2006, of which 40, about 19.5%, were upheld wholly or partially.

New procedures in dealing with complaints which hope to improve turnaround times are being introduced shortly.

In 2005/2006, a Mori poll showed that 38% of people felt the response they received from the BBC was better than they expected, while a further 47% thought it was at least as good as expected.

The BBC report also reveals that in 2005, the BBC received 870,979 total calls about its programmes, not all complaints, working out at an average of 2,386 per day.

The full Outreach report can be viewed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/outreach/pdfs/2...ips_Review.pdf

Source: Digital Spy