The appliance of science

Hoopla ! I have found the summary minutes of the BBC Executive for February. Once again, James Harding of BBC News is missing from both the list of attendees and those sending apologies. Can that really be three in a row ?  And, in a rare example of lese-majeste, our revered Director of Nations and Regions is referred to as Kenny (could they be fake minutes ?).

The longest entry is about new performance measures to reflect the demands of the new Charter - and it looks like there'll be plenty more counting to do for programme makers, as Auntie seeks metrics to prove that shows are "distinctive".

"The Charter and Agreement requires the BBC to develop measures (and targets for those measures where appropriate) with Ofcom to assess the performance of the UK Public Services in fulfilling the BBC’s mission and promoting the Public Purposes. The BBC and Ofcom must publish at least annually the performance measures and evidence about performance against those measures. 

"Executive Board discussed the proposed approach to this performance framework. Meeting the Charter’s requirements on measuring distinctiveness and delivery of the Public Purposes would require additional metrics. These were still in development but the paper outlined some proposed approaches to them as well. The Board also discussed progress with the development of metrics to measure ‘cross-media’ consumption of BBC content. 

"Formal approval of the whole framework will be required when the BBC Board publishes its first Annual Plan of the new Charter, in mid-2017"