Nicolai Haugsted
Stunning numbers emerge behind Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against BBC.
Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar legal battle with the BBC has acquired a striking new detail after viewing figures emerged for the documentary at the heart of his case.
The US president is seeking $10 billion from the British broadcaster over a Panorama episode aired shortly before the 2024 presidential election.
Yet testimony cited in a revised court filing, which The Mirror has been granted access to, indicates that fewer than 300 streams of the programme were linked to US-based internet connections during its entire period online.
Questions surrounding the size and reach of the American audience could now become significant as Trump pursues damages primarily for alleged harm to his reputation.
Trump’s case concerns a Panorama programme broadcast in Britain one week before the 2024 election.
Controversy focused on the programme’s editing of remarks Trump delivered during his January 6, 2021 speech before supporters marched toward the US Capitol.
The BBC has acknowledged that the editing could have given viewers the impression that remarks delivered at different points in Trump’s speech had been spoken consecutively.
Trump’s lawyers subsequently accused the broadcaster of a “brazen” attempt to interfere with the presidential election and argued that the programme damaged his reputation.
The documentary, however, was not broadcast on American television.
Just 285 streams linked to US addresses
Richard Cooper, the BBC’s director of digital distribution, provided viewing information during a deposition connected to the lawsuit.
According to Cooper, the programme accumulated approximately 570,000 views through BBC iPlayer.
Only 285 streams were associated with IP addresses that could have been located in the United States. Just 34 were linked to Florida, where Trump’s case is being heard.
Even those numbers do not establish that 285 people physically watched the programme from American soil.
Cooper reportedly explained that IP information can produce misleading geographic results. Most of the 34 streams apparently associated with Florida, for example, were traced through an address in Slough, England, connected with cruise operator Carnival, whose headquarters are located in Florida.
Moreover, the 285 potential American streams cover roughly the entire year during which the documentary remained available online, rather than solely the week before voters went to the polls.
Huge damages claim faces unusual calculation
Trump is demanding a combined $10 billion, equivalent to approximately £7.4 billion, from the BBC.
Measured against the 285 streams potentially associated with American connections, the demand works out at roughly $35 million for each potential US viewer.
His legal team recently revised the complaint after the case encountered another complication involving how Trump intended to demonstrate financial damage.
Lawyers had initially argued that the programme caused economic losses. Pursuing that argument would have required Trump to provide information concerning the financial performance of hundreds of businesses associated with him after the judge said such evidence would be necessary to establish the alleged losses.
Trump’s lawyers subsequently altered their approach.
Case now focuses on Trump’s reputation
The revised complaint shifts attention away from alleged damage to Trump’s businesses and toward the effect the programme supposedly had on him personally.
According to his legal team, the amended case “focuses President Trump’s damages allegations on the reputational harm that he has suffered”.
Lawyers now identify “personal reputational harm as the primary compensatory injury.”
The judge has accepted the amended complaint, allowing Trump’s case to continue despite the revised basis for seeking damages.
Viewing figures disclosed during the proceedings, however, establish a potentially important question for the litigation: how much reputational damage could the programme have caused in the United States when available data links fewer than 300 streams to potential American internet connections.
