A research grouphas brought out a new study on the political biases behind broadcast news. The results are truly damning – shining a light on the disproportionate coverage of far-right Reform UK on theBBCandITV.

Enhancing Impartiality is an independent organisation funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Its website states that:

Our project will investigate the impartiality of broadcast and online media through large-scale analysis of news output, nationwide surveys and focus groups, and in-depth interviews with leading editors and journalists. Overall, we aim to assess how different broadcasters apply impartiality and how audiences understand it over the coming years.

Now, anecdotally, you may have thought ‘hm, why am I seeing Reform all over the telly even though they have 5 MPs.’ Well, now you can back up that anecdote with cold, hard evidence.

Reform bias

An Enhancing Impartiality study conducted back in September looked into the ways broadcasters interpreted different factors when choosing how to cover political parties. It showed that BBC News and ITV News at Ten referred to Reform UK in 22.7% of their bulletins between January and July 2025.

By comparison, just 12.6% of bulletins referred to the Liberal Democrats in the same time period. This is due in large part to a spike in coverage after Reform’s success in the May local elections.

More recently, Enhancing Impartiality’s newest study examined over 560 references to parties and their respective leaders. It also broadened the research’s scope to encompass the four main oppositional parties (Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Greens).

For obvious reasons, the study didn’t look at references to Labour. As the ruling party, they would obviously receive far more airtime. It also excluded country-specific parties like the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.

The study itself followed a rigorous methodology. Enhancing Impartiality stated that:

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.

Damning results

First, before we launch into the results of the study, a bit of context. Reform are currently leading YouGov’s polling on voting intention in the UK by 26% to Labour’s 18%.  However, that isn’t currently reflected in the party’s representation at the parliamentary level.

Since the general election, Reform have had 5 MPs in total. That ties them with the Democratic Unionist Party as the UK’s sixth largest political party (or seventh, if you count the independents). They’re just one seat ahead of the Greens.

On a local level, Reform did well in the May council elections, gaining 677 seats. Since that time more than 40 of its councillors have left the party or been sacked. However, that apparently hasn’t stopped the corporate media’s obsession with its far-right darlings.

According to Enhancing Impartiality, as of September this year both the BBC and ITV 10 o’clock news referenced Reform more often than the Conservatives. This was due mostly to a sudden focus on immigration, which just happens to be Reform’s flagship issue.

And, as luck would have it, immigration and asylum was the main context for mention of the opposition parties. In fact, it made up 16.6% of references on BBC and 22.7% on *ITV.*The BBCreferenced the Tories slightly more often in this regard, but ITVchose to focus more on Reform’s opinion.

Last but not least

ITV referenced Farage 49 times, to Badenoch’s 33 and Ed Davey’s 10. The BBCwas slightly more responsible, referencing Badenoch 57 times to Farage’s 47. This makes sense, given that she’s the actual opposition leader.

Likewise, Reform was the main focus of twice as many stories compared to the Tories – and four times more than the Lib Dems. Enhancing Impartiality explained that:

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.

And, last but not least, the findings for coverage of the Greens on either channel was abysmal:

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.

‘Impartiality’

Out of interest, if anyone cared to check, we’re sure that the Canaryprobably also gives an outlandish amount of attention to Reform. Likewise, we also devote a lot of our time to covering the Greens (and Your Party, for that matter).

The difference, of course, is that we’re not hiding behind a mask of impartiality like the BBCor *ITV.*We wear out politics on our sleeves – left wing and proud of it. We spend a lot of time on Farage because he’s a deplorable, racist little toerag, and somebody needs to bloody say it.

That’s not what the BBCor ITVare doing. At best, they give Reform airtime because they generate outrage clicks. At worst, they’re executing a cynical maneuver to buddy up with the party they think will be in charge of the country come the next general election.

Either way, the practical upshot is the same. If there’s one thing that Enhancing Impartiality’s study has shown, it’s that so-called ‘neutral’ news is anything but balanced. Farage and his far-right goons dominate the supposedly impartial mainstream media, and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public into the bargain.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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