Phil's last stand

We now have the December minutes of the BBC Board - the last to be written by company secretary Phil Harrold before his move into transformation at News.  He said his job was to make the minutes 'as dull as possible', and he's continued in that vein to the end. 

I can help with some suggestions that may make them of marginal interest. 

The discussion about strategic alignment with the public service is code for "Are those Americans we's appointed to run BBC Studios going too far ?"

There are clearly some internal audience measures of 'fair and balanced reporting' which are on the way down, and the Board is also yet to be convinced that the Executive has got the measure of 16-34s. Bit like Adolescence, eh ?

WDIAM

And, at the BBC as elsewhere, editors demand "What It Means For You" pieces, without hearing the answer, "We Don't Really Know". 

Michael Race at the BBC copped it: "How Trump's tariffs might affect you and your money". Gutted, his piece reads: 

1. Prices could go up, but could also go down

2. It could affect your job

3. Interest rates may stay higher for longer

Largely meaningless

The round the clock team at BBC News online have been monstering Trump on a 'live' page running since 10.03 on 31st March. It's now up to 14 pages in total; seven of them covering 'news' before the President uttered the first word of his Rose Garden speech. 

There are items by Adam Goldsmith, Theo Leggett, Adam Fleming, Dharshini David, Mitchell Labiak, Faisal Islam, Henry Zeffman, Dearbail Jordan, Michelle Fleury, Barbara Tasch, Bernd Debusmann Jr, Natalie Sherman, Chris Page, Nikil Inamdar, Ben Hatton, John Campbell, David Waddell,  Brandon Drenon, Katya Adler, Ben Chu, Paul Moss, Jonathan Josephs, Chris Mason, Tom Espiner, Annabelle Liang, Sarah Smith, Davide Ghiglione, Jayne MacCormack, Ian Aikman, Simon Jack, Tommy Lumby, Nadine Yousif, Ana Faguy,  Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Vishala Sri-Pathma, David Wallace Lockhart, Catherine Moore, Michael Race, Peter Hoskins, Lisa Lambert, Anthony Zurcher, Koh Ewe, Stephen McDonell, Tessa Wong, Tiffanie Turnbull, Paul Kirby, Laura Gozzi, as well as innumerable uncredited paragraphs. 

Deborah Turness should be made to sit down and read all this guff. 

Can we find the whole speech anywhere on the site ? Nah. A transcript ? Nah.  

Laurels

The first anniversary of the re-launch of bbc.com has prompted Linkedin outpourings of success from those running BBC Studios in America. You'll note a lack of absolute figures.

"The BBC’s website traffic in February 2025 increased by nearly 25 percent year-over-year, continuing  double-digit year-over-year growth for the past seven months. In February, BBC.com saw its highest number of habitual visitors from North America for the past 18 months.

“This was our fourth consecutive month inside Comscore’s top 20 — and in November, which was a not-insignificant news month in this country, we were ahead of really well-established competitors, like the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters and Politico. We are growing at a pretty remarkable scale, which has been really encouraging.” Ben Goldberger, General Manager and Executive Director of Editorial Content at BBC Studios

"Since the relaunch, the BBC News and Product teams have introduced the always-on livestream of the BBC News channel as well as the first-ever livestream of Glastonbury Festival, tripled monthly registration through new sign-up tools, and rolled out new newsletters.

"This past week, BBC Select reached a new subscriber milestone and became the 4th largest dedicated documentary streamer in the US – no small feat for a service that only launched four years ago!" Tara Maitra, President Global News and Streaming

"Congratulations to Deborah Turness and the world-class editorial team at BBC News, as well as Tara Maitra and Ben Goldberger and their amazing Global News and Product teams on this hard-earned milestone! I’m excited to see what new heights are in store as our digital platforms continue to evolve and grow." Rebecca Glashow, CEO, BBC Global Media & Streaming

Adding up

I'm sure there are erudite readers out there who can help me reconcile these two charts. First, one taken from the BBC's Annual Plan, 2025/26, published yesterday... 

Then this, from a Linkedin post by a senior member of BBC Studios, also apparently sourced from Press Gazette. 

The Plan

 The BBC's Annual Plan is an odd beast, getting odder. The 2025/26 version allows itself 19 pages of 'context', largely trumpeting how well the BBC is doing in terrible financial circumstances. That's up from 14 pages of blah in the 2024/25 version. 

And then, when we actually get to the sections on "Strategic Priorities and Creative Plans", each division - News, Content (tv and radio) and Nations & Regions, reminds how well they've done in the previous twelve months. 

Sometimes there's a bit of overcooking overcounting. In January 2024, BBC Sounds claimed 5m signed in accounts. This was apparently wrong, and the target for 2025/26 has been pushed back to 4.8m. 

In News, the year ahead will see daily content from BBC Verify, whether there's anything to verify or not. And in a worrying echo of the days of Martyn 'Good News' Lewis, we get this promise:  'We will also broaden the agenda and cover content that is more relevant, positive and engaging – especially to those feeling alienated by the relentless modern news cycle'. 

'To reach young audiences with our most important stories, we will expand our presence on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram this year, and invest further in our vertical and shortform video capabilities, to drive off-platform reach and enrich experiences on our owned platforms. These measures will also help to better serve audiences from lower income, C2DE socio-demographic groups.'

Bet you never realised that the BBC is big on 'Enterprise Leadership', did you ?  Can't you tell ?

'Enterprise leadership is about developing world-class leaders who are constantly prioritising what is best for the whole BBC while leading highly productive and values driven teams. We are on a mission to create an organisation where world-class leaders are building a world-class BBC.

'In order to realise this mission, we have developed a suite of leadership development programmes, under the brand banner of Enterprise Leadership. This training will ensure that leaders are not only living the BBC’s Values, adhering to the BBC Code of Conduct, and delivering the very best for all audiences, but also that leaders are encouraging others across the whole enterprise to do so as well.' 

Full engagement

The Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy had sessions with BBC Chair Samir Shah in October and November last year, as well as a meeting about Charter renewal with unnamed Beeboids later in November. Junior Minister Stephanie Peacock met a BBC World Service team in November. 

DCMS official Polly Payne met with the BBC in November; Ruth Hannant met Tim Davie on successive days in December

The buddy system

Emma "I get answers for a living" Barnett is always going to attract the interest of media journalists, especially those who take their cue from vocal listeners on social media; and the Today rota is going to be under scrutiny for some time. 

The Mail says she may have made a complaint to BBC News CEO Deborah Turness, about co-presenter Nick Robinson being 'overbearing'; it may not have been a complaint, it may have been a statement, and it may not have happened - nonetheless it seems given legs by the fact the Emma and Nick have only been paired three times in 150 shows. 

I've been chatting Today rota issues with former colleagues who, like me, wrote the blessed thing for months on end. Some things were set in stone, some things (like the shorter Saturday shows) were sought out by presenters, and some pairings, were, let us say, deemed sub-optimal. 

The biggest staff sensitivity, in my day, was when two big beasts were together, and there was only one, juicy and obviously-headlining 0810 interview to be done.  It was grim being the overnight editor breaking, quietly, the choice of presenter to handle that interview to them, as they shuffled to their desks at 0430am. The mood of the whole morning was darkened. 

Maybe the current rota-meister is simply trying to limit those mornings.  

Scrutiny

A fair display of spine by the Newswatch team this week, featuring grumpy Stephen Sackur tearing intellectual lumps out of the current BBC News executive trio as he says farewell to HardTALK. Well done to Diana (probably fireproof) Martin, also currently minding Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, and producer James Mallett. 

Front

There's always been a ripple effect of phraseology within the BBC Weather team. The words 'misty' and 'murky' have been conjoined for some time, started by Helen Willetts. Over January and February, the male forecasters became obsessed with 'transition', presumably in homage to Pep Guardiola. 

Over recent weeks a number on the radio have added 'out there' to their introductions, in case we were to confuse their predictions with the invaluable alternative indoor weather forecasts....