Health matters

Ex-BBC COO and thwarted DG candidate Caroline Thomson has joined the NHS Trust Development Authority as a non-executive director. This may give her a chance to spar once again, at least indirectly, with Lord Patten, who, as well as being Chairman of BBC Trust, sits on the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint, an investment group with major holdings in NHS out-sourcer Care UK and Tunstall, a tele-health-care operator. Or perhaps Russell Reynolds Associates, the headhunters that Lord Patten works for, found Caroline the job...

Office management

Peter Salmon, Director of North (and probably East, West and South-excluding-London) has blogged about the latest NAO review of the BBC's move to Salford Quays.

The papers have highlighted the scale of the relocation costs. No-one has made much of this para, in the changing budget of the project.

In February 2011, the BBC Trust approved an increase in the budgeted lifetime cost for the project in cash terms, from £876 million to £942 million. The increase was owing largely to the addition of £126 million following the BBC’s decision in 2010 to establish a head office unit and other central services at Salford, a £63 million increase for additional technology and a £28 million increase in estimated utility costs. The combined impact of adding these costs and updating other estimates increased the total gross lifetime cost by £238 million to £1,114 million (Figure 11 overleaf). The addition of these costs addressed a recommendation we made in our 2010 report for the BBC to ensure that all lifetime costs are included in business cases.

Peter was appointed Director, BBC North at the end of 2008. The budget line for the "head office unit" has now been reduced by £45m. But if you divide the remaining £81 million pounds over the twenty years from 2010 to 2030,  it still means it costs over £4m a year to run the Salford "head office" and central services.

With open eyes

When the recent BBC report into bullying came out, HR Director Lucy Adams claimed senior management failed to spot the problem because they were not close enough to rank and file staff.

She told Broadcast "“I was surprised because it’s not the BBC I recognise. I’m not witnessing this stuff. We haven’t been as visible and connected as we should have been. One of the key recommendations from the report is for senior managers – including those at the very top – to be much more visible, out there, connected and continuing to talk to our people."

The latest BBC organisation chart shows that, as of April, there are 595 staff in "BBC People" - I'm guessing three per cent of the work force. They were probably busy on redundancy cases....

Opportunity knocks

Talented women - apply for any and all BBC jobs now; the odds are massively in your favour. Lord Hall has appointed just one woman, Anne Bulford, to replace another woman, Zarin Patel, and moved Helen Boaden sideways. Since then we've seen promotions for Danny Cohen, Roger Mosey; an enhanced role for Peter Salmon; James Harding in at News, and blokes to run Newsnight and Today.

Details of James Purnell's management structure in Strategy and Digital (in a pdf straight out of Mad Men) show some 41 key posts, of which 13 are filled by women - and many of them seem to have "business management" in their titles.

The charts also reveal that former Comms boss and hardy swimmer Paul Mylrea is still with Auntie, contrary to previous reports, and in charge of something called the BBC Stakeholder Engagement Plan.

Wheels

And as Ian Katz is unveiled to the Newsnight staff as their new editor, Jamie Angus, helping out there as part-time Assistant Editor since the Rippon departure, is revealed as the next editor of Today on Radio 4.

Runner, cyclist and Crystal Palace-fan-living-near-Dorking, Jamie's currently a commissioner in BBC Global News. His BBC pedigree includes eight years on Today, rising to planning editor; daytime programmes editor on BBC World Service, and Editor of the World At One suite of programmes.

Isn't James Harding a cyclist ?

Ear ear

Some odds and ends from the lastest quarterly radio listening figures: Radio London 94.9's reach is down 22% year on year - Danny Baker left the weekday afternoon slot at the start of November last year.  For Paul Easton's take on the London market, click here.

BBC local radio in England is down 6% year on year. The Mark Forrest (All England-weekday-evening) Show launched in January, but Matt Deegan says that's not the problem ! Mark has 160,000 listeners - better than the three previous quarters.

Some BBC digital stations may have plateau-ed. 6Music, Radio 4 Extra, IXtra and The Asian Network could be where they are for a while.

Radio Cymru, which had to play old records at the start of the year in a dispute with the Welsh pop industry, is down to a new low of 119,000 listeners a week. BBC Radio nan Gaidheal is not rated on RAJAR.

Radio 2 and Radio 3 have had good quarters, led by their breakfast shows. Radio 2's turning into a monster, and commercial radio will now be yapping at the ankles of MPs for the imposition of the first radio ASBO. (Readers have pointed out that in the 70s and 80s, Radio One returned weekly audiences of up to 24 million - measured in the old way)

More men

It seems, in the end, Lord Hall couldn't make the money right for Peter Barron; The Spectator is convinced that Ian Katz, deputy editor of The Guardian, will be announced today as the next editor of Newsnight.

He's been quiet on BBC issues since the 28th April, but clearly BBC2 is his channel of choice...

Extraordinary that BBC2 Murdoch doc did not mention Guardian's role in exposing hacking
— ian katz (@iankatz1000) April 28, 2013

Kirtsy Wark ridiculous suggesting Tom Baldwin appointment by Ed Miliband analagous to Cameron hiring Coulson #newsnight
— ian katz (@iankatz1000) May 10, 2012

Ian's been with the Guardian for 23 years, and is married to Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet. They have four children and live not far from Highbury and Islington. Earlier this year it was reported that Dan Stevens was being lined up to play Ian's role in a dramatic reconstruction of the Assange/Wikileaks/Guardian love-hate relationship.

Dodgy diction

The BBC Trust Editorial Standards Committee has upheld a complaint against Thinking Allowed on Radio 4. Here's the nub of their finding.

The Committee considered that the phrase “cox sackers” was intended to be a play-on-words and if the words had been articulated clearly, the phrase would have been within the expectation of the programme’s audience. However, having listened carefully to the pronunciation of the phrase, the Committee believed the phrase was not articulated clearly enough and could easily have been misheard for the offensive word “cocksuckers” by the majority of the audience. 

Professor Laurie Taylor is 77.

Talking shop

Still no real news of the future of the BBC's struggling Digital Media Initiative, in the latest full minutes from the BBC Trust. Trustee Antony Fry, heading swiftly for the calmer waters of Premier League, said his finance committee had received "an update" and that "further discussions on the project would take place in the coming months".  After he's gone, then.

Elsewhere, the Trust approved the BBC's budget plans for next year, without much in the way of transparency in the minutes; and gave the nod to continuing planning for Project Barcelona, by which the BBC wishes to sell its archives to you, the licence payer, as downloads. Lord Patten, 69, apparently likes the relaunch of BBC World.

The meeting thanked Tim Davie for his interregnum as DG; process freaks like me might have asked what's happened to the February minutes of the BBC Executive, before letting him go...

Cheesy tripe

So it's farwell to Insalata di Tonno e Fagioli at £6.50, Farfalle al Salmone at £8.50, and Saltimbocca alla Romana at £11.20 - La Vigna, an Italian family restaurant at 110 Great Portland Street, has closed its doors for the last time. A trio of chefs formerly with the Arbutus group are opening Picture, a new eatery aimed at the BBC, over the road in Broadcasting House.

21 of the 65 covers will be at a long dining bar - and the menu has got one bit of the current BBC culture wrong, with an emphasis on "sharing dishes".  Manager Tom Slegg says they'll change regularly, but offers examples of  "Smoked Eel with Date Puree, Apple and Cucumber", and "Slow Poached Hen's Egg with Mushroom Marmalade" (is that really a sharing dish ?) and "Tripe Gratin with Chilli and Butterbeans". Mmm.
There'll also be a set lunch menu at £20. Says Slegg "We want it to have a light industrial feel. There'll be no white table cloths, no pretence [in Tripe Gratin? Ed] and no pressure on people when they eat" (presumably unless they're late for the set lunch).

Whaddya think ? Trendy enough to tempt James Purnell away from the Riding House Cafe ?