Are broadcasters reflecting multi-party politics in the UK? An analysis of BBC News at Ten and ITV News at Ten in 2025
Over the last year, support for the main two political parties – Labour and Conservative – has collapsed and a new era of multi-party politics has begun. Reform UK has now taken a sustained and commanding lead in the polls, while the latest YouGov survey shows the Greens have overtaken the Liberal Democrats, and are not far behind the Conservatives and Labour.
For broadcasters legally required to be impartial, the emergence of a multi-party political system represents a challenge to how they allocate airtime. Over several decades, they have broadly balanced Labour and Conservative perspectives, followed by the Liberal Democrats and, where relevant, the Greens, UKIP (or the Brexit party), or parties across the devolved nations. But the current political context is unprecedented given one party – Reform UK - is leading the polls, but has just five MPs and a limited record in past elections. Meanwhile, support for the four other UK-wide parties is relatively close (between 14% and 19% of votes according to the latest YouGov survey). And this does not take into account the 4% of people who would vote for the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales.
Given broadcasters have limited airtime to report politics, especially on TV news bulletins, balancing the competing perspectives of parties is highly challenging and politically sensitive. After all, the UK’s major broadcasters have the power to include and exclude political perspectives, which explains why broadcasters receive heavy scrutiny about their reporting. The BBC, in particular, has received many complaints from people who have felt there was too much coverage of Reform UK given the party’s limited presence at Westminster. But the UK’s main public service broadcaster explained that the number of MPs at Westminster was not the only measure used to allocate airtime to parties.
As we outline in Table 1, when broadcasters allocate airtime they consider a party’s vote share at the last UK General Election, a party’s electoral performance at the most recent devolved, regional and local election, the latest trends in opinion polls tracking voting intention, and whether what a party is saying the news organisation considers significant or, as the BBC say, whether they are “making the political weather” by setting the agenda.
In a previous study, we examined coverage of Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats to consider how broadcasters interpreted different factors when balancing airtime between the parties. We discovered that BBC and ITV News at Ten between January and July 2025 referenced Reform UK in 22.7% bulletins, compared with 12.6% for the Liberal Democrats. While coverage of both parties was broadly balanced ahead of May’s local elections, the reporting of Reform UK subsequently spiked due to its electoral success and opinion poll lead.
In this new study of 563 references to parties and their leaders, we have extended our analysis to include all four oppositional parties (Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Greens). We excluded Labour because as the governing party, it will – by far – receive the most attention due to proposing new policies, as well as responding to events and issues domestically and internationally.
As with our previous study, we systematically tracked every reference to each party and their leaders on two of the UK’s most-watched nightly TV news bulletins – BBC and ITV News at Ten – between January and September 2025. We assessed how they were covered, including the topic of the story and whether a party was leading a story (e.g., the dominant focus of item) or responding to an issue, event or a rival political party.
Executive Summary
Reform UK overtook the Conservative Party as the most referenced opposition party (37) on both the BBC news at Ten and ITV News at Ten in September 2025. The Conservative party (25) had previously received more attention as the official opposition throughout 2025, but coverage of Reform UK in September increased with a focus on stories about immigration and asylum along with the party’s conference.
Reform UK’s Nigel Farage was the most referenced party leader on ITV News at Ten (49), followed by the Conservative’s Kemi Badenoch (33), and the Liberal Democrats’ Ed Davey (10). On BBC News at Ten, Kemi Badenoch (57) was the most referenced party leader, followed by Nigel Farage (47) and Ed Davey (20).
Reform UK was the dominant party in more than twice as many stories as the Conservatives and just under four times more stories than the Liberal Democrats. On the BBC News at Ten, Reform UK was the main focus in 26 items, compared to the Conservatives’ 14 items, and the Liberal Democrats’ 8 items. On ITV, Reform UK was the dominant party in 25 items, compared to the Conservatives’ 11 items, and the Liberal Democrats’ 5 items.
Between January and September 2025, on BBC News at Ten there were 338 references to opposition parties: 157 to the Conservatives (44.4%), 83 to Reform UK (24.6%), 61 to the Liberal Democrats (18%), 24 to the SNP (7.1%), 12 to the Greens (3.6%), and 1 to Plaid Cymru (0.3%).
Between January and September 2025, on ITV News at Ten there were 225 references to opposition parties: 101 to the Conservatives (44.9%), 74 to Reform UK (32.9%), 25 to the Liberal Democrats (11.1%), 14 to the SNP (6.2%), 10 to the Greens (4.4%) and 1 to Plaid Cymru (0.4%).
Reform UK received 3x as many references as the Liberal Democrats on ITV News at Ten, and 1.36x as many references as the Liberal Democrats on BBC News at Ten.
Immigration and asylum was the dominant context in which opposition parties were referenced, accounting for 56 (16.6%) references on BBC and 51 (22.7%) on ITV.
On BBC News at Ten, the Conservatives were the most referenced opposition party in relation to immigration and asylum with 26 (46.4%) references, then Reform UK with 20 (35.7%), and the Liberal Democrats with 8 (14.3%). On ITV, Reform UK was the most referenced opposition party in relation to immigration and asylum with 24 (47.1%) references, then the Conservatives 23 (45.1%), and the Liberal Democrats with 8 (15.7%).
Despite the SNP being the party in government in Scotland and having nine MPs, it received limited airtime in TV news, with a large proportion of coverage related to Operation Branchfoot and the embezzlement scandal that led Nicola Sturgeon to resign as First Minister (of which she was cleared). There was scant coverage of the current SNP government’s policy agenda in Scotland or its members in Westminster.
The Greens received very little coverage despite polls shows they attracted 10% of voters throughout 2025 (in October 2025 this increased to 17%). When the party was covered, it was mostly in the context of the local elections and the Greens’ 2025 leadership contest. And even then, neither BBC nor ITV News at Ten covered the announcement or build-up to the Green Party leadership election in the summer. Both bulletins only covered the result on September 2.
Method
As part of our AHRC-funded project about the impartiality of political news, this study was designed to examine how broadcasters have been responding to the challenge of covering a wide range of political parties attracting significant levels of support in voting intention polls. In doing so, we considered how broadcasters interpreted the concept of due impartiality, taking into account the broad criteria used to determine coverage of political parties. This included factors such as past performance at the last general election in terms of seats won and vote share, as well as taking into account the results of the latest electoral devolved, regional or local electoral contests, and trends in opinion poll data.
As with our first study, we focused on the BBC and ITV late evening TV bulletins because they represent two of the most-watched broadcast news programmes in the UK. While they are the respective channel’s flagship news programmes, they do not reflect all BBC and ITV political content across their broadcast, online and social media channels. But it was well beyond the resources of our project to monitor all BBC and ITV political news output in detail. We identified all news items that referenced a UK Parliamentary opposition political party and assessed how they were covered, including the topic of the story and whether a party was leading a story (e.g., the dominant focus of item) or responding to an issue, event or a rival political party. We searched for references to political parties and their respective leaders, using databases, such as Learning on Screen’s Box of Broadcasts, which provided relevant transcript data. This was then subjected to close textual analysis. We relied on this database to access retrospective broadcast output; however, some dates were not available (this included two BBC News at Ten bulletins and 17 ITV News at Ten bulletins over the nine months of analysis).
In total, we examined 271 days of BBC News at Ten and 256 days of ITV News at Ten between 1 January 2025 and 30 September 2025, analysing 563 references to parties and their leaders (338 BBC and 225 ITV), the topics they appeared in and whether a party was leading coverage (the dominant focus of a story) or responding to an issue, event or a rival party.
Total number of references to parties
Graph 1 shows the total references to opposition parties between January 1 and September 31 on BBC News at Ten and ITV News at Ten. The Conservatives were the most frequently referenced opposition party in TV news, which is unsurprising given the party’s status as the official opposition in Parliament.
On BBC News at Ten, there were 338 references to opposition parties: 157 to the Conservatives (44.4%), 83 to Reform UK (24.6%), 61 to the Liberal Democrats (18%), 24 to the SNP (7.1%), 12 to the Greens (3.6%), and 1 to Plaid Cymru (0.3%). On ITV News at Ten, there were 225 references to opposition parties: 101 to the Conservatives (44.9%), 74 to Reform UK (32.9%), 25 to the Liberal Democrats (11.1%), 14 to the SNP (6.2%), 10 to the Greens (4.4%), and 1 to Plaid Cymru (0.4%).
The rise of Reform UK: towards the main opposition party
During September 2025 Reform overtook the Conservatives as the most referenced opposition party on both the BBC News at Ten and ITV News at Ten. On the BBC News at Ten, Reform UK was referenced in 17 items in September, while the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were referenced in 12 items. On ITV, Reform UK was referenced in 20 items, the Conservatives in 13 items, and the Liberal Democrats in 8 items. While Reform UK held its annual conference in early September – boosting the party’s coverage that month – it only made up 7 references and 3 counter-responses from the Conservatives. In other words, if coverage of Reform UK’s party conference is excluded from our analysis in September, the party still featured more in TV news (30 references) than the Conservatives (22 references).
It could be that Conservatives’ October conference – outside the timeframe of this study –pushes references to the party ahead of Reform UK again. But the Conservatives’ conference coverage was often viewed through the prism of dealing with the threat of Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage. Our future research will assess which party featured more in subsequent months.
Attention to Reform UK steadily grew from February to May after the party’s success in the regional and local elections (see Graph 2). While coverage of Reform dipped in June – as it did for several other parties too – it then spiked in July and peaked in September 2025.
Reform UK also played a significant role in setting the news agenda over this time period – far more than rival opposition parties. As Graph 3 shows, from January to September 2025, Reform UK was the dominant party in twice as many stories as the Conservatives, and just under four times as many stories as the Liberal Democrats. This meant they led the agenda rather than responding to other parties or issues.
On the BBC News at Ten, Reform was the dominant party in 26 items, the Conservatives in 14 items, and the Liberal Democrats in 8 items. On ITV News at Ten, Reform UK was the main focus in 25 items, the Conservatives in 11 items, and the Liberal Democrats in 5 items. As a result, Reform was regularly setting the news agenda, most strikingly on immigration and asylum issues, as opposed to responding to government announcements or policies proposed by rival opposition parties.
There were three key points when Reform UK featured prominently in the news agenda. First, after the success of May’s regional and local elections, the party received a lot of coverage. Second, Reform UK led major set-piece policy announcements on immigration, notably in August, where the party proposed its plans for mass deportation, and during party conference. Third, the internal affairs of the party was under focus at various points in time, such as its chairman, Zia Yusuf, resigning and then re-joining the party in a different role or when the former Conservative chairman, Sir Jake Berry, defected to join Reform UK.
Taken together, opposition parties appeared most often in stories about immigration and asylum, accounting for 56 (16.6%) references on the BBC News at Ten and 51 references (22.7%) on ITV News at Ten. As shown in Graph 4, the Liberal Democrats were often absent from news coverage of immigration and asylum, despite having distinctive if more moderate immigration policies than either Labour, the Conservatives or Reform UK.
On the BBC News at Ten, the Conservatives were the most referenced opposition party on immigration and asylum, with 26 (46.4%) references, followed by Reform UK’s 20 references (35.7%) and the Liberal Democrats’ 8 references (14.3%). On ITV News at Ten, Reform UK was the most referenced opposition party on immigration and asylum, with 24 (47.1%) references, followed by the Conservatives’ 23 references (45.1%) and the Liberal Democrats’ 8 references (15.7%).
In terms of the comparative coverage of party leaders, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, the leaders of Reform UK and the Conservatives respectively, were both substantially more prominent in coverage than Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats (see Graph 5). On the BBC News at Ten, Badenoch (57) was the most referenced party leader, followed by Farage (47), and Davey (20). On ITV News at Ten, Nigel Farage (49) was the most referenced party leader, followed by Kemi Badenoch (33), and Ed Davey (10).
The Greens, the Scottish National Party (SNP), and Plaid Cymru received very little airtime between January and September 2025.
The Greens were referenced in 12 items on BBC News at Ten and 10 items on ITV News at Ten. Over half of these appearances were during regional and local election campaign – a point in time when broadcasters’ balance coverage more evenly between parties. As Graph 2 shows, the Greens were covered nearly as often as Reform and the Liberal Democrats throughout April and early May. Another moment when the Greens received prominent coverage was after their leadership contest on 2 September 2025, with Zack Polanski elected leader of the party. However, both BBC News at Ten and ITV News did not cover the announcement or build-up to the leadership contest. Moreover, this change in leadership did not led to any sustained coverage of the party for the remainder of September.
Despite the fact that the SNP run the Scottish government and has nine MPs at Westminster, the party received just 24 references on BBC News at Ten and 14 on ITV News at Ten between January and September. However, the SNP was the dominant party when referenced in 6 items on the BBC News at Ten and 5 items on ITV News at Ten. On the BBC News at Ten, these items mostly related to Scottish government policy, such as a report on the 6 May 2025 reflecting on John Swinney’s first year as First Minister and future priorities. By contrast, on ITV News at Ten, in almost all items the SNP was the dominant party focused on Nicola Sturgeon and the previous leadership of the SNP, rather than the current SNP government or its MPs at Westminster.
Plaid Cymru only received one (0.3%) reference on the BBC News at Ten and one reference (0.4%) on ITV News at Ten. On 12 April, Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts featured on ITV News at Ten responding to the government's Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill to help save Scunthorpe Steel Works, questioning why equivalent measures were not being put in place for Port Talbot. On 11 June, Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts appeared on the BBC News at Ten responding to Rachel Reeves' spending review, questioning the provision for Welsh railways. If the sample had been extended through October, Plaid Cymru would have been referenced in the context of the Caerphilly by-election campaign. The party may have also received coverage during its annual conference in October.
While Plaid Cymru only has a handful of MPs and is not the governing at the Senedd, the party is leading most polls in Wales and could form the next government in Wales. The significance of Plaid Cymru’s limited coverage is exacerbated by the fact that in Wales UK-wide broadcast news is more widely consumed than Wales-only news, meaning many people who regularly watch network news will not learn about one of Wales’ major parties. Combined with the limited coverage of the SNP, this is further evidence of a long-term trend where UK-wide media tend to focus predominantly on Westminster politics, and the devolved governments receive minimal attention. The lack of coverage of parties and their leaders in Scotland and Wales was also evident in our study of leading debate and panel programmes.
The rise of Reform UK: reflections on the impartial allocation of airtime
Following Reform UK’s success in May’s regional and local elections, its leader, Nigel Farage, claimed: “After tonight, there’s no question, in most of the country we are now the main opposition party to this government”. The UK Parliament still designates His Majesty’s Official Opposition as the party with the largest number of MPs, which remains the Conservatives. But unofficially, UK government and political commentators have begun viewing Reform rather than the Conservatives as the main opposition, as have public opinion polls. An Ipsos Mori survey in May 2025, for example concluded that: “Reform viewed as the opposition: The British public is now slightly more likely to consider Reform UK (37%) as the main opposition party (defined as the most likely party to lead a government in Westminster if Labour loses the next GE), ahead of the Conservatives (33%).”
Our analysis of TV news bulletins throughout 2025 revealed broadcasters have gradually elevated Reform UK’s opposition party status. Coverage of Reform UK has steadily increased over the past year, spiking after May’s election and peaking in September when it overtook the Conservatives as the most referenced political party. Even if coverage of Reform’s UK annual conference in September was excluded from coverage, the party still received more references than the Conservatives and led the agenda more. Much of Reform UK’s coverage has been driven by the party leading debates about controlling immigration and asylum. The party’s rise in coverage on TV news coincides with when the public has most been concerned with immigration and asylum – the top rated issue according to You Gov tracker surveys. At the beginning of 2025, 44% of people thought it was one of most important issues facing the country at this time. By mid September – the peak of Reform UK’s coverage – this rose to a record 58% of people that year who believed it was the most important issue. This is despite the fact that net migration has fallen over the last year. However, it is difficult to disentangle what comes first in surveys asking what issues most concern the public. On immigration and asylum, for example, how far is the public’s concerns fuelled by prominent media coverage or reflective of people’s direct experiences? While this is open to debate, You Gov polls examining what stories cut through to the public have consistently found people recall stories about immigration and asylum, especially from August into September 2025.
The prominent broadcast news coverage about Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage has attracted critics. The BBC, for example, acknowledged it had received complaints from its audiences and issued a statement justifying its coverage of Reform UK. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have complained to Ofcom that Reform UK was receiving undue prominence in broadcast news.
But have broadcasters broken any of the UK’s rules on due impartiality? In our view, they have not since broadcasters have a considerable degree of editorial flexibility in how they impartially allocate airtime to parties, rather than having to follow a strict mathematical formula to ensure balance.
However, our research does raise questions about how broadcasters have been interpreting impartiality in a new multi-party system. On objective measures used to allocate airtime to parties, our analysis suggested they have tended to favour total vote share over MPs elected at the last general election. For example, Reform UK– with 5 MPs – received far much coverage than the Liberal Democrats’ 72 MPs. And Reform UK received a 2% greater vote total share than the Liberal Democrats. On the latest trends in opinion polls, our research revealed this played a significant factor in allocating airtime to parties – evidenced by Reform UK’s prominent coverage – and because broadcasters have often referred to it to justify editorial decisions. On the performance of parties at the latest regional local elections, our analysis suggested this generated at least a short-term boost in coverage to those that won new council seats and mayoral campaigns.
On the more subjective judgement about allocating airtime to parties that set the political weather, our research raised some alarm bells about the impartial judgements influencing which parties and leaders should be allocated airtime. For example, we found Reform UK led many immigration stories because the party has championed radical proposals and led the agenda. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats were largely absent from coverage discussing immigration and asylum issues despite having their own distinctive immigration perspectives. The party would likely promote policies that would either maintain or enhance immigration levels compared to Labour, the Conservatives or Reform UK, who would, to different degrees, radically reduce them. In other words, because the Liberal Democrats have a moderate approach to policy-making on this issue they appear less likely to be allocated airtime. If this logic is applied to reporting policies and political issues more broadly, it would lead to promoting radical or extreme positions of competing political parties at the expense of covering sensible or pragmatic policy solutions. Or, put more bluntly, allocating airtime through the prism of news values or political agenda-setting risks undermining the impartiality of editorial judgements about which political parties and leaders should appear in political news.