Watch out

Dear Mr Brittin, 

In the spirit of transparency, do you think you should be clearer with international readers of bbc.com about whether this "BBC Arts" feature is sponsored, 'partnered', or advertising ?

Oooh, Thommo

Former BBC and New York Times boss Mark Thompson faces a squeeze in running CNN, according to the New York Post, if and when Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is approved. 

The merged operation would see one executive in charge of both CNN and CBS News. The company is considering several big names, including current CNN CEO Mark Thompson, NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde and former NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim. Ben Sherwood, currently CEO of Daily Beast, and former CBS News president David Rhodes are also under consideration. 

CBS News is currently the BBC's news partner in the States. 

Rapid

So Rhodri Talfan Davies is to be "responsible for shaping and delivering the BBC’s editorial strategy, and safeguarding the public’s trust in the BBC.

"He will drive the BBC’s commitment to editorial excellence across all BBC output, including ensuring the Corporation responds rapidly and robustly to any editorial and operational issues."

Rhodri began his career as a sub-editor with the Western Mail in Cardiff in 1993, leaving within a year to become a BBC News Trainee. He spend the next six years as a news reporter and producer at a number of BBC centres including Newcastle, Manchester and London.  From 1999 to 2001, Rhodri was Head of Regional and Local Programmes for BBC West, starting in post at the age of 28.

Here's Rhodri responding rapidly and robustly in 2021.

Here’s the clip. This is Rhodri Talfan Davies in 2021. pic.twitter.com/ng7BsOc3rX

— SEEN in Journalism (@JournalismSEEN) January 29, 2026

Standards

The all-new BBC Editorial Standards Committee has published minutes from its first meeting, in March. 

It was set up after the previous Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee exploded last year under BBC Chair Samir Shah, with a failure to agree that a Trump/Panorama edit was wrong; the explosion led to the departure of News CEO Deborah Turness and DG Tim Davie. 

It's chaired by Senior Independent Director Caroline Thomson, with Shah no longer in attendance; Tim Davie sent apologies.  Four pages of minutes, which I'm sure will be shorter in future; here's one dangerous strand: 

5.2 Committee members discussed the most effective approach to the discussion of prebroadcast programme risk and assurance around their management. David Jordan and Rhodri Talfan Davies would discuss the matter offline and return to the Committee with a proposed approach.

I rather hope 'mind your own business' is the proposed approach.  Elsewhere this rather underwhelming proposal from interim News boss Jonathan Munro suggests he won't get the big job. Lower Trust is code for Reform UK and Restore voters...

8. Plan for Lower Trust Audiences

8.1 The Committee received a presentation from Jonathan Munro, Interim CEO of News and Current Affairs and Emma Theedom of News, Audiences, which provided an update on the News plan for lower trust audiences.

8.2 The Committee noted that the plan had three planks: Making Your Voice a core part of News across all platforms; rooting more journalism in local issues that matter to ‘harder to reach’ audiences; and re-establishing QuestionTime as a must watch direct audience engagement programme.

8.3 The Committee asked for an assessment of the plan’s effectiveness to return for consideration after six months.

Only at the BBC

HR works in mysterious ways the BBC. This is the Mail's take on how complaints of bullying against Victoria Derbyshire were handled.

"It was reported that the investigation failed to uphold any of the allegations made against the presenter.

"BBC bosses, however, still sought to reprimand her so the probe was seen to have been handled robustly."

Remind me of the strategy

Pulling in the same direction ?

"The UK’s national and local stories hang in the balance. Make the wrong choices now, and there is a real risk that UK creativity and storytelling will be squeezed out, and our creative sector will fall into decline. "(From the BBC response to the Green Paper of Charter Renewal.) 

Meanwhile BBC Studios are sending Karl Warner to Los Angeles with the task of “identifying, partnering with, and scaling the next generation of creator led IP for global television formats”

Entitled

What's in a title ?  Rhodri Talfan-Davies was called Executive Director at the BBC, seconded to look after AI, when he was asked to step up as Interim Director General until the arrival of Matt Brittin last month.

According to the main BBC Board pages, he's once again an 'Executive Director'. However, at a London conference yesterday, he was billed as 'Editorial Director'; that's also the title on his Linkedin Page.

Is this an early pointer to Deputy DG ?

Secondary viewing of First Sight

A strong catch-up result for the Panorama investigation The Dark Side of Married at First Sight. Just 0.77m watched it live, 0.7m watched on the same day, and 0.99m caught up with it over the week. That's a respectable total of 2.46m. 

"Things tech will never do better than humans"

BBC Chief People Officer Uzair Qadeer has been to Porto to tell the World HR Summit what's what. 

Presumably after a briefing from newly-arrived AI expert Matt Brittin, he told delegates that AI meant a m move for HR from "stewards of corporate culture to activators of pace and performance". As ever,  personnel officers are vital: "If HR doesn’t play a role, AI transformation will not succeed".

As for executives, they now needed "excellent caveman skills".  "We are going to go back to the skills of the past – perception, emotional intelligence, in-the-moment negotiation and coaching, conflict resolution; all those things that tech will never do better than humans".  

And Uzair had an ominous warning "AI is not going to make bad leaders good, but it will absolutely expose who and where they are".   Which the BBC has previously found difficult... 

Merger benefits

The BBC Board's Remuneration Committee signed off a pay rise, unsurprisingly, for the new Chief Technology and Product Officer Storm Fagan at their meeting in February. The merger of Technology and Product into Media Tech, formally announced in March is meant to save money overall. 

Last week, Will Farrell-Green stepped into Storm's old job, as Chief Product Officer. So presumably the savings are coming from lower down the food chain. 

(En passant, we note that Will is a former professional triathlete, from New Zealand, via product roles in San Francisco for Pandora, Twitch and Amazon)