09/03/2012 Newswatch

Raymond Snoddy asks if a new BBC debate show will appeal to younger

Welcome to the programme. Later, one of you were I thought BBC News

showed too much of this. This is a low level election involving many

candidates. Only one of which we will ever see. The chances are most

of you are no longer in the first flush of youth. Statistics show TV

has struggled to attract younger viewers to news and current affairs.

80% of adults watch three minutes of TV news a week, averaging 2.5

hours of viewing, among the 16-24 year-olds it drops. Last year one

have you told us she was not getting what she wanted from TV

news. I am 17 but when I was younger I watched Newsround which I

loved watching because it used to be really simplified but I

understood it. I think now when I watch the news although I get most

of it, they are things I do not get. If I want to find out things, it's

important the news gives me this information. In an attempt to

provide context and reached out to viewers like Sabrina, BBC Three

started an occasional programme called Young Voters' Question Time.

Andy Brow contacted us to say it can we not make this regular, it

may help to engage the youth in politics. On Wednesday, following

in the footsteps of Young Voters' Question Time, BBC Three started a

new debate show, free speech. I will be speaking to its executive

producer, first, how did the programme attracts the elusive

target audience? This is free speech live from east London, your

chance to have your say about what matters to you. The first show went

out in east London and with a panel of four, including a Conservative

MP. The big issues like welfare and Afghanistan are covered and topics

with more relevance like cycling safety and pricing of Arca Hall.

Innovations were the power but monitoring audience reaction to the

panellists and an emphasis on social media. Join the debate

tonight. Getting into the spirit, we have been looking at the

The reaction was positive from one viewer who spoke to us. I and 19

years old and I loved how there was a range of people, especially

younger people, on the panel that are influential, recognisable to

people are rage. And I love the fact that you could interact

through Twitter. That is how this generation communicates. And

especially the power bar because it allowed due to be surely say he the

viewers were agreeing with and what they disagreed with. For younger

people, I do not think there's many programs that allow us to interact

and get our sunny across. But will the new series succeeds and

persuade its audience to get in front of the box? Well, the

creative director at Mentorn Media which makes free speech for the BBC

joins me. You have been in these encounter fair's most of alive, why

are the young reluctant to sign up? I think we are on the cusp of an

exciting period. For years this has been a big problem and the streets

of broadcasting land are full of the corpses of TV programmes which

have tried to reach out to the young and failed. Why do you think

they have failed? They have been too patronising, it has been a top

down service, it has been people like me sitting in ivory towers

thinking this is what young people will like and guess what, they

haven't. How did you go about making free speech different?

big thing now is that young people, younger people, are becoming more

empowered because of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

I think the power is transferring away from people like you and me to

this audience. If we don't actually acknowledge that and recognise it

and work with it, we will be out of a job soon. What were the ground

rules and how did you plan the programme, the panellists were

rather younger, do you have a quota of people over 40 but do not become

a panellist? Without giving too many secrets away, there was a

certain n p over 40, she may not have looked it! -- Member of

Parliament over 40. We know the people who are opinionated and two

are not afraid to come forward with strong views on big subjects.

Conservative MP who may or may not be on the wrong side of 40. She got

a hard time from the audience on the power bar. Does this mean each

of the programmes will be fairly hostile to established values and

anti- authoritarian? That is an inevitable element of programmes

like this. Largely kids will feel that they are having a hard time or

their voice is not heard and essentially if they want to make

their protest heard it is normally the people in charge he get it in

the neck. Estimate they spoke to me, she liked the format and expected

to get a hard time. Some of the comments I have been following

online said that they quite like it and it she wasn't there playing of

another politician, she was talking to the people.

The wider implications for other programmes of this sort? I think

there are but they have been there for long time. The message so

greener made at the start of the report about not feeling she can

engage with the news because the jargon is too dense, these are big

issues. -- Sabrina. The language, the tit for tat battles but go on

in politics, these are all for young people barriers to getting

into the news. I think we need to address this in the future. This

programme is trying to do that. Steve Anderson, thank you.

The process of choosing a candidate to challenge Barack Obama in

November is hotting up. This week sought Super Tuesday when 10 states

cast their votes but not everyone was enthralled. That comes as no

surprise to BBC management as a senior editor was heard admitting

at a meeting the audience is bored Another viewer who found it less

than super was a Laurence Williams. He explains why. This is a very low

level election occurring at the moment involving a lot of

candidates who only one of which we will see in the end in the election

later this year. They are 10 states involved but it's not the people in

10 states voting, it is a microscopic percentage of the

entire electorate. This is the equivalent of the Labour Party

recently collecting Ed Miliband to be the leader who presumably will

run in the next general election. I do not think the Americans in any

way would have covered the election process better cared for the Labour

Party, they would concentrate on the general election. There are

more important things to be covering to do with actual head of

state elections for example the presidential campaign in France,

there has been government elections in India this week, and the Russian

presidential election. There are other things which are of more

importance we should be covering. It's not an American election, it

is a party election in America. It is for the leader of the Republican

Party, this is nothing to do with the actual government of the

country, it is to do with the work up to that and the real election we

should be covering is the one up later in the year with the

presidential campaign. Before we go, several wrote to us about the cameo

appearance on the news of 10. -- So, there is the Downing Street cat,