BBC Coverage of Rural Britain: New Polling Reveals Crisis of Trust
The Regional Moorland Groups have today written to the next BBC Director General calling for urgent reform of the Corporation's rural coverage, backed by devastating new polling that reveals rural Britain's loss of faith in the broadcaster.
YouGov polling conducted last week shows that the BBC has comprehensively failed rural communities. The figures paint a damning picture of a broadcaster that has lost touch with the countryside.
Only 2% of all UK adults believe the BBC represents rural areas "very accurately" – a staggeringly low figure that should alarm anyone concerned about public service broadcasting. More than half (53%) of people living in rural Britain believe the BBC continues to rely on a narrow group of individuals and organisations when covering rural issues, echoing concerns first raised in a 2014 BBC Trust review.
Perhaps most troubling, fewer than one in four Britons (24%) think the BBC is unbiased in its reporting on rural issues. Among rural residents themselves, 37% believe the BBC represents rural areas inaccurately, whilst 38% feel they themselves are misrepresented by the Corporation.
When the BBC covers moorland management, grouse shooting, or upland farming, the voices of those who actually work the land – gamekeepers, farmers, land managers and rural workers whose families have lived in these areas for generations – are marginalised or absent entirely.
The timing of our letter is deliberate. The recent resignation of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness over the misleading editing of President Trump's speech has demonstrated that the BBC's problems with bias are institutional, not incidental. If the Corporation cannot be trusted to present speeches accurately, how can rural communities trust it to fairly represent the complexities of moorland management, agricultural practices, or field sports?
The answer, unfortunately, is that they cannot and do not.
A decade ago, the BBC Trust's Impartiality Review into rural coverage identified systemic problems. The review found clear metropolitan bias, noted that rural stories were "too often viewed through the lens of environmentalism", and highlighted the BBC's problematic over-reliance on a small number of NGOs to set the rural affairs agenda.
Ten years later, little has changed. Chris Packham remains the face of BBC nature programming despite being a leader of the anti-field sports campaign group Wild Justice and vice president of the RSPB. In 2015, he referred to farmers, hunters and gamekeepers as "the nasty brigade" in BBC Wildlife magazine. BBC regular Mark Carwadine wrote this year that grouse shooting involves "wildlife slaughter and habitat desecration" on an "industrial scale".
Neither has been properly reprimanded, nor has the contrasting viewpoint ever received this level of support on BBC programming.
When the BBC covers moorland management, grouse shooting, or upland farming, the voices of those who actually work the land – gamekeepers, farmers, land managers and rural workers whose families have lived in these areas for generations – are marginalised or absent entirely. Instead, airtime is given to urban-based campaigning organisations with little direct experience of rural livelihoods.
The incoming Director General has inherited a crisis but also an opportunity. We have called for urgent reforms: genuinely independent rural correspondents with direct experience of farming and land management; clear editorial guidelines ensuring balance with rural workers' voices; proper weight given to economic, social and ecological perspectives of those who work the land; and a dedicated Rural Affairs department with genuine autonomy.
Rural Britain is watching. The question is whether the BBC can genuinely reform itself and serve all communities without fear or favour. The polling suggests it has a long way to go.
Note: All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 6,495 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 30th November - 3rd December 2025. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).