Friday, February 7, 2025

Deep dive

The BBC Board's Editorial Standards Committee only has five members, but attendance was boosted by nearly a dozen managers with an interest at their November meeting. Chaired by the Chair Himself, Samir Shah, they at least recognise the difference between 'impartiality' and 'public perceptions of impartiality'. 







One would like to think this was the first of series, including reviews of perceptions of impartiality from Labour, Libdem and Conservative voters. Or perhaps it's only Farage and Tice that give them the willies ?

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Downer

Not everything in the world of BBC Sounds is always UP. The average weekly audience for Quarter 4 2024, at 4.8m across the app, website  and smart speakers is down from 4.86m in Q4 2023. 

The total play of music mixes is down to 4.9m, from 6.2m a year ago. 



Radio numbers

There's a good set of figures for BBC Radio in the latest RAJAR report, covering the last three months of 2024.  There are a number of upward ticks, year on year, perhaps slightly helped by population adjustment made by the researchers earlier in 2024 - adults over 15 are now estimated at 57.6m, up by 1.3m. 

All BBC Network Radio has found 365,000 new listeners, year on year. BBC Local Radio in England has only lost 11,000 in the same period. Sam Jackson, at Radio 3, has added 10% reach, year on year, despite creating the side temptation of Radio 3 Unwind halfway through the three months. The BBC hasn't declared figures for this groovy chill service.  Overall, BBC reach to listeners aged 15-44 is up 4.8% over the year - close to a triumph, surely. 

The BBC Asian Network, moving back to Birmingham and taking less news, is up nearly 30% in reach, to a more respectable 580k. Not far off Times Radio, now reaching 604k, despite losing Matt Chorley to Radio 5Live. Radio 5Live has added 100k year on year. 

Radio Scotland has dropped 55k listeners, to 745k, putting it level with Clyde 1 serving Glasgow and the West of Scotland. Radio Wales is up 15%, Radio Cymru up 26% and Radio Ulster down 10%.   


Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Make pipo open mouth

BBC World Service News demonstrating 'soft power' in Pidgin. Current list of most read items (1000am GMT Wednesday)



Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Means of production

Newcomers to BBC News often think THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH STUFF. It's clearly on the mind of CEO Deborah Turness, who has acceded to a 'pan-BBC review' of all BBC factual content on tv and iPlayer, radio and Sounds. It's due to report in June, and thus well-timed to produce cuts in 2025/26. 

Jo Carr who runs Current Affairs in News will be part of the review team. So Debs has decided that Richard Burgess, Director of News Content will run her department - becoming commissioner and producer at the same time, a Soviet solution that will alarm the few free-thinkers left at Broadcasting House. 

Monday, February 3, 2025

Im return don cause controversy

The BBC News website in general seems to have swerved Bianca Censori's latest publicity stunt. The exception - the BBC News Pidgin site, serving users in Nigeria, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. 



Higher or lower ?

Are the New Year schedules at BBC Scotland dragging in new viewers ?

The news-hour Nine has been shifted; this week it's replaced tonight by a documentary about a travelling circus; on Tuesday, we get real-life cold cases in Murder Trial; Wednesday is Debate Night; Thursday features an episode of quintessentially Scottish Mrs Brown's Boys from 2012;  and Friday is blocked out Ayr United v Dumbarton in the Scottish Cup. 

Meanwhile, last night's Reporting Scotland at 7pm featured five minutes of news about Scotland, with remaining ten filled by BBC News reports from Washington, Gaza, and the Grammies, which viewers may have seen elsewhere.  

Gates-way

The journalists 'curating' the BBC News home page have decided that Bill Gates's urge to give away money is the one of the seven most important stories I should know about today.  Heaven forfend that this placement should have anything to do that there's a long interview with Bill on BBC2 tonight, conducted by Culture Editor Katie Razzall, who apparently went to Seattle for the task. Katie has an odd way with text; is it true that there's no longer a central subbing operation for the BBC News website ?



Saturday, February 1, 2025

Reaching

As the BBC News website follows the sun, the story of Trump's tariffs on goods from Canada, China and Mexico has been written in Singapore (as of 0945 GMT).  For those with this particular peeve, you'll be aghast to learn that "The BBC has reached out to the Chinese embassy in the US for comment."

Friday, January 31, 2025

Celebrate who we are

The job ad for a Talent Acquisition Operations Specialist at BBC Studios brings us a ridiculous mash-up of mangled management-speak and spurious capital letters. Read it and weep. 

The Talent Enablement team at BBC Studios has been designed to drive capability and performance throughout the Talent team by giving focus to the Tools we use, the Processes that Lead us, and the Employer Brand that celebrates who we are. 

As an Operations Specialist within the Talent Enablement team, you will be responsible for Processes and Ways of Working that are used by the BBC Studios Talent team. This means you will have the responsibility of reviewing and driving change across some of our most impactful processes across the Talent Team, including reviewing and leading improvements in our current Onboarding processes, and leading on enhancing our Hiring Leader capability.

This role will work in close partnership with our HR Operations and HR Service teams, all parts of the Talent team, our peers in BBC Public Service, and ultimately our Candidates, People, and Hiring Leader populations to positively impact our Candidate and Employee experience. 

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