Donald Trump dropped the BBC studio from the Panorama case, but the main issue remains

Donald Trump has dropped defamation charges against the BBC’s commercial arm over the controversial Panorama segment, but the US president is still pursuing his billion-dollar claims against the BBC as a whole.

Last December, Trump sued the BBC and BBC Studio Productions over the 2024 Panorama segment that would stitch together different parts of his speech.

The BBC argued that the studio companies “had no role in the creation or production of the documentary and did not broadcast it in America”.

Trump’s plea deal entered into court on Thursday confirmed that the claims against BBC Studios must be dismissed, but said “President Trump will continue to prosecute the defendant British Broadcasting Corporation.”

Trump Panorama is suing for up to $10bn (£7.4bn) to combine his speech before the fall of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The suit – filed in Florida – accuses BB of “deliberately, maliciously and deceptively doctoring” the speech.

The BBC has apologized for an editorial error that mistakenly claimed “President Trump has made a direct call for violent action”.

But the BBC rejected the suit, arguing that the program did not meet the legal requirements of defamation and was not aired on American platforms.

Last month, Trump’s lawyers admitted that they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the US through the BBC’s Britbox subscription service, or that it was available through BBC.com, BBC Choice or US broadcasters.

Earlier this week, the president’s lawyers rejected a request by the BBC to dismiss the BBC’s request, arguing that the broadcaster had made an “untenable proposition” and that the dismissal was a “wrongful and unjust result”.

A jury will have to decide the defamation case, saying the BBC’s geo-blocking technology did not reliably prevent viewers in the US from watching its UK-only streaming platform iPlayer.

The documentary’s production staff has instructed many people on how to watch it in the US, and a post promoting the program on X pointed out.

“The data, taken together, show a concerted conduct of the BBC to the United States, not to ‘access’,” the legal papers said.

“The BBC has produced a documentary about a Florida-based US presidential candidate in the run-up to the election, promoting it worldwide on the official channel Unlimited and making it available for international and US consumption.”

Meanwhile, last month the US government said it was “considering getting involved in this litigation” after the BBC subpoenaed it for information from several federal agencies.

If the case continues, a trial date is scheduled for February 2027.

Panorama’s editing sparked criticism when a leaked BBC memo was published in the Telegraph newspaper last November. This led to the resignation of the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davey, and its head of news, Deborah Turnes.