Majority of visitors come from mobile but we get more page views on desktop: Richard Porter

Interview with Editorial and Digital Director, BBC Global News

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Richard Porter is the editorial and digital director, BBC Global News, which reaches 105 million people every week via television, internet and radio. In an interview, he speaks to Vanita Kohli-Khandekar in New Delhi. Edited excerpts:

Why is the India market getting increased attention lately? Have the revenue or audience numbers increased?

It is not just one thing. The relationship between the BBC and India is special. Therefore, it is not hard for us to say that India is important. We reflect India back to Indian audiences and to the rest of the world. And, the relation between India and the rest of the world is interesting too. Then, there is the scale, energy, excitement of the place. We just did a documentary on Indian railways (World's busiest railway). Both BBC world news and digital are doing well in India. We reach between 10-20 million Indians all put together (TV, digital, radio). (Outside of the UK all of BBC news operations are commercially-funded).

How does India compare with your big markets globally?

India is important because it is big. We are big in the US (more than 40 million homes). But, generally speaking, we tend to do well in major English speaking markets. What is common in the over 200 countries we reach is the appeal of our values and fair/objective high quality we offer.

The challenges in India.

Being an outsider, we will never have the scale that local companies have. It is a massive country and covering a range of opinions is difficult. So, we try to do it fairly. We are not there to promote India, but at the same time we should not be inaccurate or incorrect. It is a brand that known and loved in India, so access is not tough at all.

A comment on quirks in consumption patterns globally.

There is the growth of mobile, not unique to us. Then, there is digital video which is increasing rapidly. Then, there is the way people experience our journalism on other platforms.

For example, people who see a news piece from us on Facebook, often come back to the BBC. In India, a majority of our unique visitors (digital) come from the mobile but we get more page views on the desktop. In African countries, desktops and laptops will never take off, that is why getting mobile right is critical. We are also one of the most tweeted URL. People pass a piece along and say "see this, this is from the BBC." So, we are also part of social media because of our strong reputation. We get more traffic from social media but some digital natives now come directly in search of the BBC, that is a good sign.

How do you view the rise of independent, original content sites, such as Quartz or others?

Vice and the others are quite good and reaching a particular audience. And doing interesting things. We obviously pay close attention to what they do. But we, too, keep changing all the time, for example in the way we do a story. A traditional TV piece is three minutes, a digital video is 1.5 minutes, it is 15 seconds for Instagram. Then there are 5-6 languages with content that ranges between 1.5-2 minutes. We couldn't have survived for 93 years if we weren't changing all the time.

How do you balance the need for a wider/deeper editorial perspective with the tyranny of the algorithm?

We are not dependent on the algorithm. Many of the people searching us out will be people who only see things, they want to. There is a sufficiently large audience out there and being relevant to a global audience is easier with technology.

What are the variables you use to judge whether editorial has performed?

There are daily meetings, reviews. We look at how we did on a big subject of our time. And, we measure our success not just on ratings but on what audiences think of us.