Team building

As Rachel Jupp contemplates her approach to the job of BBC Director of News, which she formally takes over in November, she might like to consider how to handle her thwarted competitors. Acquaintances of Jonathan Munro have used phrases including the words 'blood' and 'spitting' about his response to not getting the top job; we also learn that James Bond-expert Richard Burgess, the newsgathering manager begotten by Munro, also had a pop at the post. 

Re-defining news

Is this 'news' ?   Really ?

I've been with my boyfriend for two years and don't know his salary

It's currently the ninth most-viewed story on the BBC News website. 

Flailing

"The government expects to publish a white paper in 2026, setting out its preferred policy direction for the future of the BBC."   

Don't you feel there are too many things going on at the same time ?  Deputy DG Rhodri in weekly meetings with the DCMS, trying to get a favourable and credible White Paper sorted, while middle managers engage in serious self-harm to meet 10% cuts by April ?  And Matt Brittin dashes round Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube to plead for space on their front pages ?

The cuts to "Speech", Radio 4 and 5Live, seem chaotic, driving Radio 4 to a skeleton of news and current affairs (til 6.30pm) padded out with podcasts. Entertainingly, we are told some podcasts will stop - to be replaced by others. So not a cut ?  BBC Sounds has 4.8m users per week, 80% of them coming for 'live' listening; BBC Local Radio has a weekly reach of 6.9m.

The question is not "What has the BBC done for me ?" .  It's "What is the BBC for ?"

Thee and thine

Your and Yours, now cancelled, first started on Radio 4 in 1970, 'tackling topics of direct concern to you'. Edition Number One had presenter Joan Yorke discussing "modern" packaging, measles vaccination and buying your first home. Joan had been a stalwart reporter and occasional presenter of Woman's Hour since 1950.

It was clearly driven by Controller Tony Whitby. The BBC noted: "Each week day edition had a themed subtitle. Monday was Money while Tuesday was devoted to home and family. On Wednesday, Guarantee dealt with rights and responsibilities. Thursday was Surgery, about health and welfare. Friday's programme looked forward to the weekend with Your Own Time."   In fact, the You and Yours brand subsumed previously separate strands, "Can I Help You", "Listening Post" and "Parents and Children". 

"Very often you'd groan and think 'I'm not going to do school uniforms again'" said presenter Nancy Wise about her time with the programme in the 1970s.  I wonder what Winifred Robinson thinks...

Cultured

BBC Media and Culture Editor Katie Razzall need not be unduly alarmed by a new job ad for a BBC Culture Editor. 

This job is posted by BBC Studios, who are "seeking an ambitious, skilled and collaborative senior editor to lead the Culture team on BBC.com and the international BBC app.... The Culture team publishes a regular cadence of features, including text and video, providing lively analysis and thought-provoking context."

Sounds big ?  Katie's salary, incuding some Newsnight and The Media Show, is £215k+; This post, in London, gets £50,000- £60,000 + London Weighting (£5,441). 

In the 'desired, but not required' attributes of a strong candidate, we find "Experience developing ideas for an international, primarily North America-based audience."

Manon is the source

BBC DG Matt Brittin yesterday introduced Manon Dave of BBC research and development to the wider organisation, in a streamed presentation from the Radio Theatre. Manon talked about modifications to the iPlayer to produce both 'personalised' and 'random' suggestions of programmes to watch. It seems these gizmos are concepts. 

Manon, 41 (Reed's, Cobham; BSc Computing with Business Management, Kingston University, a course in AI at Said Business School, Oxford) joined the BBC in June last year. He seems to have chosen his own title "Head of Future World Design".  Manon's invented a range of electronic studio and music tools over the years, as well as writing and producing. Collaborators have included Will I.Am, Pharrell Williams, and Idris Elba (shown with Manon and Snoop Dogg). 

His products at the BBC so far include Signals, an new experimental interactive 'layer' that ran alongside BBC coverage of Wimbledon. He says he often works with five or six AI tools open at the same time, and engages in 'creative dialogue' with AI assistants. 

Closedown

BBC Scotland's comms team are rolling the pitch for the expected announcement of the end of a separate BBC Scotland tv channel soon-ish - they've dropped releases about "A brand new high stakes legal drama Counsels coming to BBC iPlayer in early 2027", set in Glasgow with "Scottish writers"; and posted trails for the "BBC Scottish comedy channel on YouTube". 

The much-anticipated closure of BBC Scotland's dedicated linear channel is but a punctuation mark in the unsteady story of the BBC and Scotland. Hark back nearly thirty years to the growing campaign for a "Scottish Six", the demand from Scottish politicians for a 'national news bulletin' from Scotland, with a combined 'national' perspective on Scottish, UK and international affairs. It was firmly opposed by John Birt, who, in his autobiography, admitted discussing how to deal with the issue with Tony Blair; concession might lead to a bridgehead to break up the union. 

In 2008, the Scottish Broadcasting Commission was set up, under former STV and BBC editor Blair Jenkins, and, in 2010, it made the case for a 'new digital network'; they estimated the cost at £72m a year.  The campaign was left aside in the 2014 referendum, with Blair Jenkins as chair of "Yes, Scotland". 

The idea of a Scottish Six came off the backburner in 2015, lead inside the BBC by Ken Macquarrie, the Gaelic-speaking Director of Scotland, and endorsed by luminaries such as Allan Little. Under DG Tony Hall, pilots were attempted for a 'News Hour' for Scotland, mixing items for the 6 O'Clock News with Reporting Scotland, and promising Scotland a handful for additional correspondents.  The Telegraph accused Lord Hall of 'buckling to SNP pressure'. 

Lord Hall moved in a different direction in 2017, announcing the creation of BBC Scotland, with a budget of just £32m, and its own news bulletins. It launched in 2018, and the first night attracted and average of 700,000 viewers, with a reach of 13%.  In 2020, weekly reach was just 20% of the Scottish population; last year it was down to 13% a week. That compares with 43% who at least try Gaelic-channel BBC Alba (usually for football with the sound off) once a week. 

It falls to Director of Scotland Hayley Valentine, launch editor of The Nine, to perform the last rites on the channel.

 

At home

In 2023, King's College, Cambridge, staged an exhibition of 50 photographic portraits of King’s women, taken by Jooney Woodward, to mark the 50th anniversary of the admission of women as students to the College. They still hang, now placed around the college.

This is Rachel Jupp, the new Director of News at the BBC, at home in north London.  She was at King's from 1996 to 1999, leaving with a BA in Social and Political Science. 

New messenger

It's six years since Rachel Jupp worked at the front end of BBC journalism, as editor of Panorama. BBC DG Matt Brittin, who knows a lot about leadership and a bit about news, must have been convinced that Rachel can articulate a recommitment to "the BBC's distinctive journalistic mission while reinventing how we serve audiences", both inside and outside BBC News.  

Rachel, 49, (Orleans Park School, Richmond upon Thames College, BA Social and Political Sciences, King's College Cambridge, MA Public Administration, Columbia University) left a strong run at Panorama for a fixer's job in BBC Content, alongside Charlotte Moore. It's there she constructed a 'case' for the closing the BBC Singers as we know them. That change didn't stick.  In December 2025 she was brought back into News as a sticking plaster after the self-inflicted wounds of "Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone"; a sort of Director of Prevention of Unforced Errors in Documentaries. 

There will be those disappointed by one sidebar in the announcement of Rachel as Director of News; Mr Brittin said Jonathan Munro "will return to his substantive role as Deputy Director of News and BBC News Global Director when Rachel starts.” Otherwise, BBC Culture Editor Katie Razzall called Rachel's appointed 'a bold move', and former Beeboids Mark Urban, Danny Shaw and the pseudonymous Charlie Walsham approve via X. 

Rachel will get £400k a year; it would have been nice if Matt thinks she's brilliant, to have seen her also announced as a Board member; that may be awaiting a formality.  

Jupp, a mother of three, is the granddaughter of Rev Tom Jupp, once Vicar of St Peter's Belsize Park ("An Anglican church in the liberal catholic tradition"). The Reverend played no small part in helping the growing post-war Jewish community in the area setting up a synagogue in the former vicarage. And Rachel's husband, ITN news editor Jonathan Wald is a member of that Belsize Square Synagogue, where they married.  

Lisa and Matt

Between April and June, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy met BBC DG Matt Brittin three times to discuss 'BBC live issues'. Lisa also turned to James Corden, for a discussion on 'youth and arts policy'. Her junior minister Ian Murray had two meetings with unnamed BBC personnel to discuss 'announcements'; he also turned to Barbara Speed, deputy head of Guardian Opinion, for a discussion on BBC Charter Review.