Donald Trump is continuing his £7.4billion lawsuit against the BBC, despite his lawyers admitting that fewer than 300 people in the United States watched the Panorama episode at the centre of the case.
The US President took the broadcaster to court over the programme, which aired in the UK a week before the 2024 election but was not broadcast in the US. The episode's introduction truncated a series of remarks Trump made at the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6 2021, shortly before his supporters attempted to storm the US Capitol Building to prevent the certification of his election loss to Joe Biden.
BBC acknowledges potential misrepresentation
The BBC has acknowledged that the programme may have led viewers to believe Trump said the sentences consecutively, which he did not. However, Congress and US courts have repeatedly ruled that Trump used the speech to inspire his followers to march on the Capitol, in what became the bloodiest insurrection in modern American history.
Trump has occasionally suggested that the BBC used AI to make it appear he said words he did not say. This is untrue and is not part of the lawsuit.
Viewing figures revealed in deposition
Trump's lawyers are seeking £7.4billion ($10bn), claiming the corporation made a "brazen" attempt to interfere with the 2024 election and caused reputational damage. A revised version of the lawsuit, published this week, revealed that the episode was seen by fewer than 300 people in the US.
The figure came from testimony by Richard Cooper, the BBC's director of digital distribution. In a deposition, Cooper told Trump's lawyers the programme had been watched 570,000 times on iPlayer. Of those, only 285 were from IP addresses that could have been based in America, with 34 from Florida, where the case is being heard.
Cooper also noted that US-based IP addresses did not necessarily mean the viewer was actually in the US. For example, most of the 34 Florida streams were traced back to an IP address in Slough, via the cruise ship company Carnival, which has its HQ in Florida.
Lawsuit revised to focus on reputational harm
The 285 figure covers the entire period the documentary was available online, about a year, with only a week of that before the election. Trump is seeking $35,087,719.30 (£25,974,385.96) for each potential viewer linked to a US internet connection.
Last week, Trump's legal team rewrote the lawsuit after the judge indicated the President would have to prove financial damage by handing over information about the performance of hundreds of his companies. The new complaint now "focuses President Trump's damages allegations on the reputational harm that he has suffered," according to his legal team, and considers "personal reputational harm as the primary compensatory injury."
