Because only old people watch BBC news, the BBC Trust wants news to be made 'more attractive' to the young, perhaps via the use of puppets or by having the conflict in the Congo explained in a freestyle rap by Chamillionaire.

Chairman of the BBC Trust Sir Michael Lyons has written to Mark Thompson, the Director-General, with a long list of things he wants the BBC to do better, but the main one is to make the news easier for thick people – or, as television people call them, 'low-approvers'. Keen to keep all the viewers it can in this multichannel age, the BBC is already responding – firstly by introducing a gormless 90-second round-up of the news after EastEnders and secondly by making sure that Question Time, Newsnight, Panorama, Real World, Sunday AM and The Politics Show now devote themselves entirely to Samanda from Big Brother and the wicked new trainers what Jeremy Paxman's just bought from JD Sports, innit.

Now that every bugger's got digital – and can therefore spend up to 15 hours of each day flicking backwards and forwards watching nothing but old episodes of Scrubs – it means that the BBC is in trouble, especially the news. Face it, given the choice would you rather watch Nick Robinson discuss the Liberal Democrat leadership battle or a seven-year-old episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks on Dave +1? 

The second one, obviously. Because you are a low-approver, and the BBC is cacking itself about you.

BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has been doing some research, and it seems that quite a lot of young people aren't watching the news because they find it a bit challenging. The BBC is already trying to amend that by introducing a 90-second news bulletin at 8pm on BBC One, where the woman who seems to think that all news is about her stands next to a screen summarising the day's top stories while pulling a series of grotesquely exaggerated facial expressions to help viewers understand that dead Iraqis are more serious than big-eared mice, all the while constantly jerking her head to one side like she's trying to stop the voices from telling her to murder.

And it's horrible, look…

But apparently this is what the low-approvers want. Funny, because we thought that people weren't watching BBC news any more because by the time a scheduled bulletin rolls around, they've already been on the internet and read all the news from a variety of global sources and generally have better things to do than spend 30 minutes watching some old people say what they already know. But no. According to Sir Michael Lyons:

“Performance in news and current affairs is rightly seen to be strong but the BBC is not always serving everyone in the audience as it should, with those who fall within the category of ‘low BBC approvers’ perceiving a performance gap.”

As well as this, Sir Michael requested that the BBC stopped using words like 'creative' and 'challenging' because low-approvers see them as meaning 'arty' and 'too clever for me'. From now on, Sir Michael Lyons has asked that BBC shows should only be described as either 'chung', 'proper nang' or 'so sick you'll bum it black.' 

However, it's not all bad news – Sir Michael Lyons also singled out several BBC shows for praise after conducting the research, saving special attention for Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who, The Apprentice, The Antiques Roadshow and Tribe, because that bit where Bruce Parry drunk a load of scabby blood was proper dutty fit, isn't it.

Also, it's important to point out that BBC Radio One's Newsbeat is exempt from Sir Michael Lyons' new low-approver drive, because if it dumbed down any more it'd be made of nothing but caveman grunts and slapstick sound effects.

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BBC Is Told To Make News More Attractive – Times