An former BBC TV reporter has accused his former employer of over-indulging in "gratuitous and usually utterly redundant" pieces to camera.

Michael Cole, who worked at the BBC between 1968 to 1988, said the piece-to-camera style of reporting had become so dominant that "future historians seeking coverage of what is going on now will search the BBC archives in vain for moving pictures of some events".

Writing for the June edition of Press Gazette he described how one recent episode of the BBC's flagship 10 O'Clock News contained only one minute of new moving pictures - not counting a two-minute package from America that was predominantly footage from the US networks - with the rest dominated by reporters' pieces to camera.

Read more at Press Gazette