Ear ear

Radio futurologist James Cridland has just updated his very useful post about how to listen to BBC Radio abroad - network stations and local.  Live, not catch-up, available from a webpage that seems to have taken nine months to construct. 

Selling mugs

Yet another job opportunity with BBC Studios in New York, salary unspecified. You could be Director of Retail Development. It's an omnishambles, Brittin. 

The Director, Retail Development role will execute omnichannel retail development and marketing strategies to maximize brand presence and retailer support.  

The primary focus will be to expand and manage BBC Studios brands’ retail placement across mid-tier, value, off price, grocery, drug and new business channels in the US and Canada. Opportunity to support eCommerce, as well. 

Nomination time

Minutes of the BBC Board's Nominations Committee from 20th January reveal they - Samir Shah, Damon Buffini, Muriel Gray, and Caroline Thomson - chose Rhodri Talfan Davies as "the outstanding candidate" to be interim DG. 

They also decided, rather oddly, to appoint Chris Jones, an existing non-executive director to the Editorial Standards and Guidelines Committee. A wise man, no doubt, but an accountant. 

Then Dom Loehnis and Helen Crowley of headhunters Egon Zehnder joined the meeting for a discussion of the 'longlist' of potential candidates to replace Tim Davie.  Come on, guys, 'long' ? 

Mattpod

I'm grateful to Podnews for pointing me to the fact that incoming BBC DG Matt Brittin has caught podcasting, at least as a holiday job. 

Mr Brittin is paired with Hayaatun Sillem, who spent 20 years with the Royal Academy of Engineering, the last eight as CEO. The theme is leadership, and the title of the series is What We Don't Know. Guests include Andy Haldane, Chancellor of Sheffield University; Natasha Frangos of media accountants HaysMac; Hetti Barkworth-Nanton CBE CEO of Ploughshare Innonvations, formerly of Vodafone; former BP boss John Browne; Paul van Zyl of The Conduit; Navjot Sawhney, founder of The Washing Machine Project; all produced by Boxlight, the podcast brainchild of Jimmy McLoughlin. Watch out for appearances as BBC Neds....

The first episode is all about Matt. Not much new, though the BBC can expect some much needed prioritisation and 'velocity'. 

En pointe

Expect poise from the new editor of Today on Radio 4, Rebecca Keating. 

Rebecca (MacGregor State High School, Brisbane and Queensland University of Technology) was a young member of Ballet Theatre Queensland, playing The Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, and The Fairy (below) in 1996 and 1997. 

She started in journalism with ABC Online (her photos of parliamentary buildings are still credited online) and came to the UK in 2006, joining the BBC News channel. Then followed an number of roles at Westminster, before she joined R4 News and Current Affairs, first with the World At One team, then Today, and, up until now, World At One where she's been holding Sarah Montague's hand.  

In 2013, she married Nicholas Watt, then still Chief Political Correspondent at the Guardian. He moved to Newsnight in 2016. 

. 

Indeed Bernard. Great hair cutting by @RebeccaKeating using new hair clippers and scissors. Full family production line: I was followed by Theo (4) and Lily (21 months) https://t.co/J0ASv74YIB

— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) May 4, 2020

Bit by bit

Says the BBC yesterday: "We can confirm the BBC was made aware in 2017 of the existence of an ongoing police investigation, which was subsequently closed in 2019 with no arrest or charge being made.

"We are doing more work to understand the details of what was known by the BBC at this time."

Operation Winter Key's remit was "to investigate allegations of non-recent child sexual abuse, where the alleged abuse was committed before 2012", firstly when the alleged abusers were "people of prominence in public life". Some 80 officers developed 222 cases, based in temporary offices near the Stratford Docklands Light Railway Station.  The team had learned lessons from Operation Midland, the bungled Met investigation into the fantasy claims of Carl Beech. An inspection of Winter Key in 2019 said "The Winter Key cases all seemed to have been thoroughly investigated, and we didn’t find anything to indicate that the team had made poor decisions". 

It went on to praise Winter Key's discretion: "For example, wherever possible, they prefer to take a
discreet approach when dealing with high-profile suspects for non-recent offences. This often involves a process known as voluntary attendance, which means that the suspect agrees to attend police premises for interview. Interviews can also be conducted elsewhere (for example, at a solicitor’s office)."

Winter Key may have closed down in 2019, but the Met seems to have a better handle on its records than the BBC: 'We have been in contact with the man's employer on several occasions, between the start of our investigation in 2017 and the present day. It would not be appropriate to share the specific nature of these discussions.'

BBC News tells us that the director general at the time of the investigation, Tony Hall, did not know about the allegations. Who did ?  And did they know Winter Key was about child sexual abuse ?

An added complication: Hampshire Police said the sexual offences allegations were first reported by a third party in 2016, and that the force logged the details and passed on information to the Met for investigation.  Will that third party complainant reveal themselves to the press this weekend ?

Loose

One presumes Rhodri is Gold Commander on Scott Mills, but who's helping ? 

Lisa Hunter (BA Hons Politics, Newcastle, PG Broadcast Journalism, Cardiff University) joined the BBC as Director of External Communications in November 2025, the week before the DG and Director of News resigned.  Previously, Lisa was a member of the Governing Council at Newcastle University and Head of Strategic Communications at MHP Group, a groovy multi-disciplinary PR team handily placed in Great Portland Street. Just before Lisa left MHP, they signed Alison Phillips, editor in chief at the Daily Mirror. 

New loose ends: The BBC says the person complaining about Scott Mills over something that happened between 1997 and 2000 brought 'new information' that triggered the sacking. The BBC also says that it fielded a separate inquiry from freelance journalist Anna Brees last May.  She said she had information about alleged “inappropriate communications” involving the Radio 2 DJ, and wanted to know if he had ever been the subject of an internal investigation. She didn't get a reply; the BBC now says her  information “should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions”.

Anna has a degree in Theology and Anthropolgy from Lampeter, and has worked as a journalist in the Channel Islands, ITV Birmingham, ITV Oxford and BBC South. She currently does social media training, makes short videos about Penarth and Barry, and works for the new Welsh independence party Gwlad (at least until May 7th). 

Who knew what when

So last Monday someone complains about Scott Mills' behaviour, back in 1997-2000; the BBC looks into it, and decides to sack him on Saturday.  The news is broken at 11:30am yesterday, and the Daily Mirror seems to have had a beat on the remainder of Fleet Street. The Mirror is the only tabloid vaguely supportive of the existence of the BBC. 

How much could the BBC have already known from Mills' file ?  In 1997, Scott was working for "London's Heart 106.2", joining Radio 1 in 1998. But we're told the allegations of "serious sex offences" against a "teenage boy" were raised by a force outside London. In 2001, Scott Mills came out as gay to The Guardian; later he talked about turning to alcohol after the suicide of an early boyfriend. Mitch. He also talked about 'the support of Radio 1'.   Matthew Bannister was Controller in 1997, followed by Andy Parfitt. 

The outside-London force decide to raise Mills with the Met in December 2016.  What was the trigger ?  The Dame Janet Smith review into Savile et Al at the BBC was published that year; the BBC fell out with Tony Blackburn over 'the standard of his evidence' to the inquiry. Also in 2016, Scott Mills parted with another boyfriend, marketing man Bradley Harris. In July 2018, the Met interviewed Scott Mills under caution.  A file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, suggesting the police felt there was a case to answer;  they 'determined the evidential threshold had not been met to bring charges. Following this advice, the investigation was closed in May 2019.'   Presumably some of this should have come to the notice of Scott's managers; Ben Cooper was the Controller of Radio 1. 

A reminder that Lorna Clarke, who communicated news of Mills' departure to staff, was 'stepped back' from her role as Director of Music in July last year after the Glastonbury coverage of Bob Vylan. 

Let's meet again

The chaotic end to 2025 required no less than two BBC Board meetings in December. It's hard to tell from the consistently opaque minutes which particular governance issue required meetings on the 11th and 18th December. Remember chair Samir Shah was in and out of Lisa Nandy's office, probably for sessions on the naughty step, with meetings on 1st, 3rd and 16th December. 

On 11th December the major items were reviewing Caroline Thomson and Richard Sambrook's changes to the Editorial Standard and Guidelines Committee's remit and procedures - it had signally failed to engage formally with the bombshell Michael Prescott/David Grossman dossier.  The Board asked for some re-drafting ahead of the 18th meeting. The 11th also signed off a large spending commitment on the production of Casualty. 

The big business on the 18th was money; a strategic decision to let BBC Studios spend more to make more )where have we heard that before ?) and a first-look budget for 2026/27. Proposed organisational changes clearly spooked some non-exectuives, who asked for a full zero-budgeting exercise to report back in March. One element lacking clarity - how much the BBC is prepared to spend on the World Service, a detail still missing from last week's annual plan. 

One little item: The Board noted an update from the Chair on succession planning for the DirectorGeneral.  This a matter of 39 days after Tim Davie's resignation. 

Say what ?

 

The Oxford English Dictionary offers six pronunciations of Iranian. The BBC seems to be sticking to the top left, apart, dare I say, from Jeremy Bowen, who is, frankly, a model of inconsistency, too often straying to the right hand side. Perhaps the Pronunciation Department will draw an isogloss around him.