Advice relating to BBC performance measurement

One of Ofcom's roles is to assess the BBC's performance in whether and how effectively it has delivered the Mission and Public Purposes. The BBC's deliverables, purposes and objectives are expanded on in the Operating Licence.

Our published performance measurement framework is focused on three main areas - availability of content, consumption of content and impact of this content (together with other contextual factors) on audiences, industry and the public more widely. We use this framework to feed into our annual report on BBC performance. Measuring availability and consumption is relatively straightforward; measuring impact is much more difficult.

Successful delivery of the Mission and Public Purposes should have an impact on audiences and, where relevant, wider society. When thinking about impact, we sometimes use the concept of public value. This concept - enshrined in the BBC Charter and Agreement - encompasses how the BBC delivers for individuals (personal value), how it contributes to wider society (social value) and how it contributes to the UK broadcasting industry (creative economy value).

The focus for this work is on wider societal impacts. Wider societal impacts of the BBC have traditionally been assessed via audience satisfaction surveys. We are considering whether there are new ways we might assess them, quantitatively or qualitatively.