Not bad

Tim and Tom will be pleased, in general, with the National Audit Office report on the performance of BBC Studios. In particular, they will leap at the offer of revising existing financial targets to be delivered by 2027/28, because of changing market conditions. Yes folks, the targets will be easier. 

Of course, my job is to highlight the niggles. The NAO allows itself one big 'I told you so'.

In our 2020 report, we identified that BBC Studios had been less successful than planned in winning new commissions and generating IP. Since then, although generation of new IP has grown, BBC Studios has not met its targets in this area and remains reliant on the IP from BBC programmes created before it was first established in 2016. In 2023-24, of the 10 titles from its production business which provided the most profit to the BBC, only one was from new IP generated by BBC Studios. 

There are revealing bits from the investment in the USA: The revamp of bbc.com cost £25m. BBC Select, a service of documentaries for posh people, has produced 275,000 subscribers. 

BBC.com did not meet its user and income targets in North America for 2023/24.

Nonetheless

BBC Studios plans to consolidate its international digital services into a single high-quality digital offering. This would combine its existing digital services – BBC.com, its international news and sports apps, BBC Select, BBC Podcasts, and BBC Sounds international – into a single, multi-territory service. 

The NAO commends in general improvements to the governance of BBC Studios, but talks worryingly of moving targets inside the business. 

There are still some weaknesses in its reporting regime which we consider make it difficult for the BBC Commercial Board and BBC Studios’ own Executive Committee to identify whether BBC Studios is meeting its performance targets, and to make good strategic decisions.

These include rolling forward of internal targets over a three-year period resulting in no reporting against the original target set for the period, and KPIs not being agreed for the beginning of the 2023-24 financial year. In addition, BBC Studios regularly reforecasts its financial metrics during the year and subsequently reports performance against these re-forecasted levels rather than the original budget, making it more difficult to use these reports to track performance over time 

Rotation

When Zoe Ball took over the Breakfast Show on Radio 2 in January 2019, she reached 9,047,000 listeners a week over the first three months, for a show that ran from 0630 to 0930. The network as whole returned a reach of 15,356,000.

In the most recent three months, with show times unchanged, the Radio 2 Breakfast Show's weekly reach is 6,277,000, and Radio 2 gets to 13,309,000. 

New Breakfast host Scott Mills started out on Radio 2 afternoons with 6,2488,900 listeners in Q1 2023, pretty much holding on to Steve Wright's figures. Can he do the same trick in the mornings ?

No speed reading here

Perhaps too much transparency in this refusal of a Freedom of Information enquiry, because it would take too long to read 1,810 emails which might reveal details of the internal debate about paying Huw Edwards after senior BBC executives knew about his arrest..... 

Question 3 of your request asked for ‘any internal communications where it was debated 
whether or not to pay Edwards’. We asked BBC Information Security to carry searches of 
relevant mailboxes using  keywords such  as  ‘Huw’  and  ‘salary’  in  the  time  period  from  1 November 2023 until Huw Edwards resigned from the BBC. This search has returned 1,810 
returns,  after  de-duplication.  Not  all  of  these  items  will  be  relevant  to  what  you  have 
specifically asked about – internal discussions where it was debated whether or not to pay 
Huw Edwards. Each of these items would need to be reviewed to establish whether or not 
they  are  within  the  scope  of  what  you  have  asked.  Taking  a  conservative  estimate  of  1 minute per item, this would take over 30 hours to review. This would exceed the appropriate time limit under the FOI Act.     

What might have been...

Broadcasting House Beeboids strolling past Wogan House have been peaking inside at the refurbishment. The former Western House will be re-opened later this month, retaining the Wogan monicker, but operated by Landmark as "a nature-inspired, modern office oasis". Extras include "vanity areas, a gym and wellness space". 

  

Above: architect's impression
Below: work in progress

Thinking caps

We have the BBC Board Minutes from July; Charlotte Moore, Director of Content, was an absentee, presumably on holibobs, but reading between the lines, she was well out of it. Ominously, at item 6, there's a distinct whiff of consultants and brainstorming... 

The Board took part in a strategic planning session on long-term options for the future shape of the BBC’s commercial and public service business models.

Sausages

Toilers at the BBC News Temple of Doom, W1, are expecting Gregg Wallace, complete with hair net and camera crew soon, for a new edition of Inside The Factory - News. 

For those of you who thought 'news' happened, and journalists reported it, think again. The problem at BBC News is that more 'news' is being extruded than can be placed on the shelves. To prevent this over-supply, a new committee of executives, including two members of News Board, is being set up, and will meet fortnightly, to determine which stories requiring any form of resource other than a live interview, can be covered. 

Note fortnightly. Every 14 days, these people will determine what's News and what's Not News. Such power.  

No doubt

Lordy lordy. Attendees will be forgiven for skipping off early from the Autumn Conference of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer coming up on 28th November. The afternoon session, perhaps aptly at the Geological Society, features VLV President Lord Hall in conversation with Alan Yentob. The organisers 'have no doubt that this will be enjoyable and fascinating'. 

Bought and sold in London

Hayley Valentine has some outreach work to do at Pacific Quay.  Screen Scotland, which boasts of BBC membership in its steering committee, and has a memorandum of understanding with Auntie, says, boldy, not all "Scottish" productions made for the Corporation are properly Scottish. 

The analysis was conducted by Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd, often used by the BBC. David Smith, director of Screen Scotland, said: “This research shows that the BBC has, across the last decade, met much of its Scottish volume quota for network TV [meaning national services such as BBC One and BBC Two] via projects bought, sold and owned in London."

Diversion

Every now and then some external guru comes into BBC News with a new matrix, segmenting news consumers and their reasons for turning to news outlets.  This is usually poor cover for 'giving the audience what they want' rather than 'what they need to know about'.  A current version of this matrix generously gives space for the sort of twaddle, dashcam clips, and old-style 'yellow press' headlines that pepper BBC News Online. The segment, one of six, is called "Divert" - "I am looking for a diversion that loosens the grip of my reality for a moment".

This morning BBC News Online's main page diverts with "Star describes growing up gay as Jehovah's Witness", "I'm offered sex as a favour because I'm disabled", and "I found out I had cancer when 36 weeks pregnant". 

As ever, the 'most-watched' is body-cam footage - a clip from Phoenix Police taken on Halloween. In second place, an old favourite from February, presumably promoted by an 'up next' BBC algorithm, hanging on to browsers 'looking for a diversion'. 

Channels

Up and down in the UK for the BBC News Channel. Reach for the month of October was 9.58m, up a million from the September figure, but way down on the 11.41m of twelve months ago. 

Sky News reached 8.58m in October, recovering from September's 7.1m, and above last October's 8.41m. 

GB News reached 3.50m in October, compared with 3.2m in September, and 3.24 a year ago.