and then three pieces in the middle that i think will be curiosities for our audience, and a brilliant piece by a young british composer. absolutely. and this is your final season as director for the proms. how does it feel? well, it feels strange at one level because normally this year i'm this time i'm thinking about next year. and i'm not thinking about that now. but what i'm determined to do is enjoy this last final year. i've done nine years, and it's been an amazing privilege to do this job, and i'm looking forward to 2024 just as much as i was my first season back in 2016. and even if you're not a traditional classical music fan, you're bound to find something in the programme for you. florence and the machine and sam smith arejust two pop performers that will be taking the stage here over the coming weeks. the final night of the proms will be held on september 14th.

let's take a brief look now at some of the front pages of tomorrow morning's papers. most are leading with the global it outages that took place today. the daily mirror is calling it the day the world stood still. beside pictures of stranded passengers, the financial times reports that fixing the problem may take days. the daily express describes it as the "digital pandemic" that paralysed the world. the telegraph is describing it as a "global it meltdown", alongside an article on the tv personality mariam margolyes, who says she has lost friends because of her opinions on gaza. the mail reports that the gunman who attempted to assassinate donald trump downloaded photos of kate middleton, princess of wales. and the daily star covers american wrestler hulk hogan's surprise appearance at the republican conference in milwaukee where he gave a passionate speech endorsing trump, which involved ripping off his shirt and calling for "trump—o—mania" to "run wild again". now time for a look at the weekend weather with elizabeth rizzini. hello there. warm with plenty of sunshine

on friday — temperatures widely in the mid—to—high—20s in celsius. in fact, it was the hottest day of the year so far, with nearly 32 celsius recorded in stjames's park, in london. but the heat is not set to last, because it will be turning cooler through the weekend. distinctly fresher by sunday. yes, still some bright and some sunny spells, and still plenty of humid—feeling around on saturday, but also some outbreaks of rain — courtesy of this weather front pushing eastwards — as we head into tomorrow morning. still some clear spells out towards eastern areas of england. it's going to feel muggy and warm — uncomfortable for sleeping. this is how we'll start off the day at 7am in the morning on saturday — temperatures for some towards the east already 18—19 celsius. so, on saturday, then, we'll start to see that rain move across northern ireland, western scotland, through wales, and into northern england, too. it could stay dry and fine for much of the day across eastern areas of scotland. some of these showers likely to be heavy as we head through the afternoon in southwest

of england, and there could be 1—2 thundery showers to breaking out towards these eastern coastal areas. top temperatures 25—26 celsius out towards the east. we're hanging on to that muggy—feeling air through the day on saturday. but it does feel fresher by sunday. now, we've still got a legacy of cloud through the morning out for eastern parts. that'll clear away, 1—2 showers developing, but also some sunshine, and then, yes, more cloud once again out towards the west especially. through the afternoon, temperatures this time just 15—22 celsius — that's quite the drop in temperature from friday to sunday. and then, on monday, we've got more weather fronts moving through, likely to bring some feather fronts moving through, likely to bring some further showers, some outbreaks of rain — and again, some rather blustery conditions, perhaps towards southern areas of the uk. we won't all be seeing the showers, some areas perhaps staying dry. there will be some brighter spells, perhaps, here and there, most of the rain out towards the north and the west as we go through monday. but temperatures just slightly below for some, the seasonal average 16—22 celsius

north to south. by the time we get to tuesday and wednesday, little ridge of high pressure will bring some drier conditions, and it could start to feel a little warmer again. but certainly not the sort of heat that we saw on friday. bye—bye for now. this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. on this programme, we hear from the woman leading bbc news. welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. coming up... i think it's trust that is the issue for us. ..deborah turness talks to us about trust, impartiality

and transparency and about how bbc news maintains its influence in a time of falling television audiences and declining budgets. it's fair to say that big news follows deborah turness around. after a career in the commercial sector, where she ran itn, she arrived at the bbc in september 2022. before the week was out, a new prime minister, liz truss, had taken office and the queen had died. significant events since then have come thick and fast, including two more new prime ministers, the war in gaza and, this week, the attempted assassination of former president trump. one of her biggest challenges has been to ensure the impartiality of bbc news output — identified by the director—general, tim davie, as the corporation's number one priority. she gave this definition of impartiality recently to a parliamentary select committee.

it's about not taking any sides. it's about reporting withoutjudgment, journalism withoutjudgment. and the bbc is seen to be the most scrupulously aware of anything that might be perceived as some kind of bias or preference to either side of an argument. but not everyone agrees with that. we've heard criticisms during the recent election of bias in all directions. steven pullen wrote to us during the campaign, saying... ..whereas gerald freel thought... meanwhile, susie hq this week raised the subject of airtime for nigel farage... well, let's speak to deborah turness, the chief executive of bbc news. thanks for coming on newswatch. the director—general has identified

impartiality as the bbc�*s number one priority, and you've heard accusations from viewers of bias during the general election campaign. what was your approach to impartiality during the campaign? well, thank you for inviting me on the programme, samira. when i came to the bbc, understanding the director—general�*s real focus on impartiality, we did a really big piece of work asking audiences across the uk and around the world what they needed today to trust us, and they told us they wanted fairness and respect. and fairness and respect really come together to form impartiality — fairness in reflecting the fullness of the political conversation and respect in showing that we are listening to them because they pay for us and the bbc is here for everyone. eight in ten uk adults came to the bbc during the election period. they said, when asked, "who would you choose for trusted, impartial coverage of this election?", four times more chose the bbc than any of our nearest other competitors.

so i would say i really am incredibly proud of our output during the election, and i really feel that we stepped up to deliver on our democratic duty as a platform for freedom of speech and to reflect the fullness of the political conversation that was happening across the uk. lots of the complaints we received during the election — and you heard one earlier — concerned the perception that nigel farage and reform received more coverage than was warranted. did they? we were very, very thoughtful and very careful about this. and first to say, equal numbers of people contacted the bbc to say that there was too much and too little coverage of nigel farage and the reform party. we make very careful determinations and we look at, you know, a sort of cross—section of data and inputs to make those decisions. for example, ofcom has a framework, the bbc charter has a framework. some of it is about past electoral performance and some of it is about polling.

and in the end, we came out to a decision whereby nigel farage was interviewed by nick robinson on panorama in peak time, as were the greens and all the other major parties. and i think that was a really important decision that we took because he was scrutinised, like every other major politician, in peak time. a big reach, important questions were asked. and i think when you look at the reach that reform ended up having, which was 14% share of the vote, ahead of the liberal democrats, i think we got it about right. 0k. the tv audience who were watching the bbc one election night results programme live was down a third, from 6.1 to 4.2 million, compared to 2019. how much does that worry you? i think when you look at the totality of our linear television reach that night and the next day, 25 million people came to bbc news to watch that coverage. but they also went to our audio feed, which was radio 4, radio 5 and sounds. they also went to the newscast all—nighter.

the audience is fragmented. they were on our live pages. we had massive reach... so you're not worried? no, because i think that we are part of the story of the fragmentation of the audience. as they are on more and more platforms, looking for different ways to consume news — through podcasts, through live pages, through digital content — we are there on all these platforms, and what you're seeing is this fragmentation story. so i'm not worried. and the total reach of our total audiences through the election campaign was 45 million people across all of our platforms. that's enormous. 0k. the news channel. so, a lot of viewers were very glad to see that the bbc provided a dedicated domestic service during the election campaign — as, indeed, there had used to be — and they feel the merged news channel for global and uk viewers doesn't serve licence fee pay as well. and i'm going to read you a message from a viewer called josh. he says...

what's your answer to josh? well, my answer tojosh, first of all, is thank you for watching, josh, and thank you for caring enough to ask that question. and we were very proud of our dedicated election stream, which did really super—serve our uk audiences with all election, all the time for those weeks. and there was a real appetite for that. and asjosh has pointed out, we do always make sure, with what we call our break—out service, that when there is a moving, developing story in the uk, that we do the break—out and we make sure that our uk audiences are getting the moving, breaking story while the global stream goes off and can serve the global audience. so that is a well—established principle and working really well. so you're going back to that? that's what we've been doing since the changes to the channel and that has been successful. but what i would say tojosh is this. the break—out streams that we put onto the channel when there's changing, evolving stories in the uk also go on to iplayer,

and we're seeing real success with that and that's a real growth area. we also put them into our live pages and our digital platforms, and that is a growth area and an area of investment for us. so he's going to see more single—story live streams in more places in the future, because we can see that the audiences have an appetite for that. now, the last government's funding reductions for the bbc saw bosses make cuts to the news channel and also to newsnight, local radio and the world service. and this week, your departing director of the world service, liliane landor, said she thought cuts to radio had been made too quickly. have you gone too far, too fast? and will there be more cuts to come? look, we're living in the real world. we have a diminishing licence fee. we've seen successive periods of licence fee renewal which have been below inflation. that's a real impact. we also have been hit by inflation ourselves as a business, as an organisation, and we're having to find the investment in our digital product, our digital infrastructure and to move with the consumers onto digital platforms.

so we have to find the cash and the money to invest, so, of course, we have to make difficult choices and trade—offs. we hope to make them always led by audiences. we ask our audiences where their priorities are, what they most care about. you mentioned newsnight there. we recently made the changes to newsnight, and actually, in the seven weeks that the new newsnight has been on air, it has grown 35%. now, we know younger audiences are deserting news broadcasting in large numbers. that could be an existential challenge for bbc news, couldn't it? it could be, but it's not, and i'll tell you why. a recent data point — on election night alone, double the percentage of audiences that came to us were 18 to 35. we doubled our percentage of 18 to 35 reach on election night. eight in ten young audience members came to us for election news on that night, and that is

a really, really positive sign. what we're trying to do, though, is to say, yes, of course, we want those audiences to come to us on our platform, but there's also the world that we live in, the real world. and so we are also investing to find those audiences on tiktok, on instagram, and on those platforms, to tell them about bbc news journalism. and we are targeting ruthlessly under—25s on tiktok. and the aim of that is to bring them back to our platforms, where they can enjoy bbc news content on bbc news platforms. all right. transparency is one of your watchwords. on newswatch, we like to think we embody that. here are a couple of messages we've had from the viewers. noel waller says... thank you, noel. and he goes on...

and jane taylor writes... and jayne taylor writes... so, without being too self—serving, could you commit to senior bbc staff coming on the programme more often to respond to licence fee payers, and perhaps even looking at finding us a longer slot? well, first of all, on transparency, thank you for doing this programme. i truly believe that we must be transparent with our audiences. everybody pays the bbc, the bbc must be for everybody, and they have the right to ask questions and to demand the right answers. i have really enjoyed seeing nick robinson, marianna spring, jonathan munro, my deputy, you know, members of the news team, richard burgess, also head of content, coming on. and i hope that we'll all continue to come on the show and to answer your questions, because they're very important. in terms of... i won't dodge your final points about the length of your programme. i believe in transparency,

but i don't think you would expect me to make a programming scheduling decision with a camera in my face.