Kirsty questions Matt

The last Edinburgh TV Festival is underway (it moves to Manchester in 2027), and the casting of BBC DG Matt Brittin's session couldn't be better. As Andrew Neil concocts an argument that the ending of Newsnight signifies the end of the BBC, Matt will face an hour being interviewed by former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark. 

A good number of BBC Commissioners and executives are on other platforms (the ones struggling to find the 16-34 audience), so maybe Matt can attend their sessions and make some judgements about how many managers the BBC needs... 

Peter Archer, Director of the Generative AI Programme at the BBC
Ros Atkins, BBC News Analysis Editor
Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning for Specialist Factual 
Fiona Campbell, Director of Factual
Nicky Campbell, 5Live
Mariel Capisciolto, Head of Digital Development
Josh Cole, Chief Creative Officer, BBC Studios Comedy and Fiction
Shukri Dirie, Development Executive, BBC Studios
Jon Farrar, Chief Content Officer, Direct to Consumer, BBC Studios
Kris Green, Training Executive, BBC Studios Drama Production
Ed Havard, Director of Entertainment, BBC
Jonathan Kanagasooriam, Managing Editor, Podcasts, BBC
Navi Lamba, Commissioning Editor BBC Comedy
Chris Mawdsley, Head Of Media Strategy, BBC
Dan McGolpin, Director, iPlayer & Channels 
Clive Myrie
Helen O'Donnell, VP - Content & Creators, BBC Studios
Kate Phillips, Chief Content Officer, BBC
Amol Rajan
Adeline Ramage Rooney, Creative Director, Entertainment, BBC Studios
Lindsay Salt, Director of Drama, BBC
Robert Schildhouse, CEO, Direct to Consumer, BBC Studios

Gregor Sharp, Commissioning Editor, BBC Comedy

Newsnight timing

I'm not sure what's propelled the idea of closing Newsnight into our newspapers in recent days. It maybe the alignment of the stars; total shutdown was contemplated previously in 2018 and 2020. 

Interim News boss Jonathan Munro has yet to complete his savings target. Will a new boss arrive before the axe is swung ?  Might that new boss be Esmé Wren, currently at Channel 4 News, who started her journalistic career at Newsnight, and was editor and successfully passionate programme defender from 2018 to 2021 ?  Esme has found time at C4 to complete the senior management programme at the Cambridge Judge Business School.   

Dogged

The BBC's US lawyers are having another go at trying to get Trump's case thrown out. They've submitted a new rebuttal of almost everything, over 30 pages long, to the new Judge, Judge Kuntz, and advised him that it would only take a one hour hearing to come to the right conclusion.

Letters after your name

Here's a factoid revealed by a Freedom of Information enquiry. 

The BBC sent 54,762, 297 letters in 2025/26 to unlicensed addresses in the UK - where there
is no record of a TV Licence or the current licensing requirements (if any) are unknown - as part of its ongoing efforts to maximise licence fee collection. They were addressed to ‘The Legal

Occupier’ and variations thereof e.g. ‘Present Occupier’, ‘Current Occupier’ etc. 

The letters were drafted and sent by BBC contractor, RAPP, "a global precision marketing agency that knows how to speak to one individual, a million at a time". 

Being nude in public

Weekend features on BBC.com seem to share elements of prurience with the UK offering. Take "'You're fully accepted': Being nude in public can make us feel better about our bodies". 

It's from BBC Studios' journalist Molly Gorman. It features as its professional sources Kerem Soylemez, assistant professor of psychology at Regent's University London and Marina Rachitskiy, billed as a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Roehampton. That's a part-time job for Marina; her main employment is as Principal Lecturer & Head of Programmes (Psychology), at, er, Regent's University London. 

Molly talks to three people feeling better about their bodies. First is Helen Berriman, correctly billed as Women's Officer for British Naturism. She's also a podcaster, and, with her husband Simon, has a website called Naked Retro Gamers ("Clothes Off, Game On").  Second is Martha Vickery, a recent guest on Helen's podcast, who featured in the 2023 C4 series Naked Education. Third is Linda Ashmore, who is South West organiser for British Naturism. 

Dinnae fash yersel

Could the BBC really close the BBC Scotland channel, as part of its savings plans ?   The hunt is on for 60 jobs, and the channel was started in February 2019 with an extra 80 posts. However,  BBC Scotland had to cut 60 jobs in 2020. The dropping of the flagship bulletin, The Nine, in February 2024, saw staff switched to other output, rather than being show the door. 

Only 12% of Scotland's population tune into the channel at least once a week; down from 13% in 2024, and 21% in 2020. Weekly reach for all BBC Scotland's various products was down to 54%, from 56% in 2024/25.  The 2% drop is slightly better than the weekly reach figure for all BBC consumption in Scotland; down to 80%, from 83%.   The figure was 90% just before BBC Scotland was started. 

The percentage of adults in Scotland who think the BBC is effective at reflecting people like them has increased to 53% from 49%.  That's still below the 54% figure from 2018, just before the BBC Scotland channel launched. 

BBC Alba doesn't seem to have been put in the mix. It launched in 2008, and claimed weekly reach of 637,000 in 2012.  That's now down to 300,000.

On repeat

The behaviour of the British viewing public in late August is bizarre. On Wednesday at 9pm, Celebrity Master Chef on BBC 1 reached an average of 1.7m viewers, taking an 18.5% share of the available audience. 

Much earlier, at 12.15pm, an edition of Bargain Hunt, on its second  repeat, drew a comparable 1.5m, with a remarkable 38% share. A function of televisions just being 'left on' ? 

Spooning

Four and a half hours of DJ Spoony in today's summer schedule on Radio 2; evidence, or otherwise, of dynamic succession planning ? 

Figures

All Perspectives, the company who's only broadcast product is GB News, reached 3.6m people via four screens over the month of July; that's down from 3.9m in June.

Here comes Judge Kuntz

Freshly sworn-in Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz took his seat in the Southern District of Florida this week, and a readjustment of the caseload of Judge Roy Altman meant Jeff, 6.4", US size 14 shoes, gets custody of Trump v BBC. 

Born in 1981 in Winter Park, Florida, he took a BA at Boston, then a law degree from Suffolk University Law School. On return to Florida, he joined Gray Robinson with twelve offices across the state. 

He's been an appeal judge since 2016. One case that came his way was Trump v The Board of the Pulitzer Prizes, in which the President's lawyers argue he's been defamed because they gave prizes to papers critical of the President, in particular to The New York Times for an investigation into Trump's finances. In February this year, Judge Kuntz gave his opinion that the case could be heard in Florida. In April, President Trump nominated Judge Kuntz for the next big Judge job.