When climate issues are covered clearly and consistently in the news, it helps spark real public conversations – and real climate action.

That’s why we’ve started tracking how often climate change is mentioned in flagship news broadcasts from the UK’s Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs).

With expert input from the University of Exeter’s newly formed Centre for Climate Communications and Data Science (C3DS), we’ve built an interactive tracker that shows how often the climate crisis is covered by the most watched and listened to TV and radio news programmes. We compare this to other issues the British public say matter most, using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

What we track

Right now, we’re monitoring coverage across the BBC (TV and radio), Sky News, ITV News, Channel 4 News, and Channel 5 News.

We tracked how frequently those newsrooms covered the climate crisis between October 2023 and March 2025.

The ONS survey average over that period suggested that 58% of adults see climate change as one of the country’s most pressing issues. Yet, as our data shows, climate change was mentioned in only about a third of PSB news programmes.

Our Tracking 

We combine smart technology with human analysis to reveal how often, and how effectively, key issues like climate change are covered in the news.

Using expert-chosen keywords and public opinion data, we track trends across major UK broadcasters. Then we go deeper, reviewing stories ourselves for context and impact.

See how it works here.