In and out of love

Mark Thompson, January 2008 - my italics

"I believe that we need sustainable programme supply strategies for all our network production centres: Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham and Bristol as well as Glasgow and Salford"

 Mark Thompson, September 2004 

"The BBC's centre of gravity is shifting. The regions of the UK and great cities such as Birmingham are central to our vision of a new BBC - a BBC which is far more representative of the people it serves around the country. In the end, the Mailbox is just a building. What is more important is the BBC's strengthened commitment to invest in production talent and local and national programme making here in Birmingham"

Mark Thompson, June 2004

We want to use digital technology to launch very local TV news services for up to 60 cities and counties across the UK. And we want to create many opportunities for people to become more active citizens, with more open debate and participation online and on radio, using our Open Centres and digital buses to engage people both with new technology and their local communities.

Mark Thompson to the House of Lords, December 2007

"Firstly, I believe about our local radio stations that they are already extraordinarily lean operations. They have pretty low budgets and they have very flexible multi-skill teams who work incredibly hard, because they are quite ambitious our local radio stations, to achieve what they achieve. The scope for further efficiencies is very modest in its part of the BBC and therefore, as we did three years ago, we have largely protected these budgets from reductions because we do not see where the efficiencies will come from.

"....our local radio stations are incredibly important. During the floods this summer there were many parts of the country where the BBC local radio station became one of the main sources of up-to-date news about the most practical things: where water bowsers were, which roads were cut off, whether it was Tewkesbury, Sheffield or Hull. Indeed, in many parts of the country our local radio people became part of the Gold Command emergency operation because the police and the other emergency services can see how incredibly useful our local radio is in disseminating vital public information. If you add that to the way in which they engage issues of local democracy, local news, local debate, they are very, very important parts of our public service".

• In trawling for these snippets, it seemed odd to me that there was nothing from 1999-2000 - when Mark was Director of National and Regional Broadcasting. If anyone can point me to stuff....