Where the world meets America

The Global Story was a podcast launched at the end of November 2023 - a collaboration between World Service and BBC Studios, and with enough funds to bring Katya Adler to the microphone each weekday. Moving through 2024, we've have a lot of Jonny Dymond, some Lucy Hockings, and quite a bit of the new BBC Washington team of Catriona Perry and Sumi Somaskanda as presenters.

In March, the supply of Global Stories dried up entirely, and there were ads for two new presenters. The successful applicants were former NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid, 41 (BA Journalism and Politics, Indiana University, M Phil Cambridge) and former Al Jazeera reporter Tristan Redman, 44 (MA History Edinburgh, Postgrad History University of Grenoble Alpes).  Tristan's further appeal to his new employers maybe his production of Ghost Story, a murder-suicide true life podcast series that topped the charts last year. 

Also joining the team will be executive editor Annie Brown, former senior producer for the New York Times’ podcast “The Daily”, who worked with Redman on Ghost Story. She'll be based in New York. 

The BBC is explicit about the skewed nature of this incarnation of The Global Story coming in September: "With one host in DC, one host in London, and the backing of the best international newsroom in the world, this podcast tells the intertwined story of America and the world – how each shapes the other, daily. The Global Story. Where the world meets America"

The current podcast successes of the BBC in the USA are lead by the Global News Podcast, a simple half-hour bulletin, built daily from the miniscule resources of the World Service team at desks in the newsroom of Broadcasting House; and the elderly WS current affairs war horse, Newshour,  produced in, er, the same building in London.  Will Asma and Tristan bring in the subscribers for this alternative ?

Casino

July 2025 looks like being a pivotal month for the current BBC management. The Great American News Gamble is officially underway. 

More and more users of bbc.com in the United States are being presented with this screen, as they attempt to follow interesting headlines. The process is called 'dynamic charging', a euphemism for the marketing team hunting down those they believe might be willing subscription victims. To make sure those US subscribers get what the marketing team think they want, BBC Studios now pays for at least 100 journalists based in the States, most of them US citizens. 

I was lucky enough to be working at Television Centre when the BBC News Online service emerged in 1997. In the nature of the web in those days, it was without international boundaries, and explicitly followed the World Service model, offering fair and accurate reporting, free of commercial or political contamination. 

Now only bits of the BBC are free to US users - radio stations that take World Service programming survive. And the news site internationally is peppered with inappropriate ads, clickbait headlines and tittle-tattle; today's offerings include "Kill Russians, win points: Is Ukraine's new drone scheme gamifying war?","How popping a pimple led to a man getting sepsis"; "Watch moment child gets stuck inside claw machine". 

Tim Davie, via marketing at Pepsico and Procter & Gamble, and leading BBC Studios, wanted to sell more 'product' in the States. "Dancing with the Stars", "Killing Eve" and the early deals for Dr Who hinted at a gold rush, now clearly easing to a trickle. What could possibly go wrong with 'selling' News in the States ? I believe it's already going wrong, and the marketing of news, under CEO Deborah Turness, distracts from the core purposes that made BBC News distinctive. 

In the US you can get ITV News, Channel 4 News and Sky News via the web; Reuters and others offer at least dispassionate text news services. The BBC risks losing large numbers of US users to free alternatives. Spin the wheel, Tim. 

Job creation

Some will be having a mild chuckle at the latest thoughts of former Beeboid Roger Mosey, in The Times, about restructuring the BBC.

"Davie [Tim, BBC DG] should also be taking a hard look at the leadership tiers below him and he may need to abandon his resistance to the recreation of a deputy director-general role to better manage the output and catch some of the flak. It is “fundamentally ridiculous”, a former senior colleague says, to expect one person to supervise all of the corporation’s creative and journalistic content."

The sign-off to the article notes: Roger Mosey is a former head of BBC News and BBC Sport. He will retire as master of Selwyn College, Cambridge, in September.  Roger is 67. 

Channels

The BBC News Channel had a monthly reach of 9.9m in June, up a tad from 9.6m in May, and down from 10.5m a year ago. 

Sky News was steady month on month at 8.3m, up from 7.1m in April, and 8.0m a year ago.

GB News nudged up to 3.75m from 3.7m in May, and compared with 3.1m a year ago. 

Ooops

BBC News' CEO Deborah Turness' 'detail' will enrage the UK's anti-BBC lobby in the Jewish community even further.  

Hardly a surprise the BBC is in such a mess over its Middle East coverage, when you see that this person, Deborah Turness, is in charge of @bbcnews
pic.twitter.com/8NVaD3CAai

— Jake (@fishcake555) July 17, 2025

Followed by a spectacularly inept blocking attempt by a BBC spokesman,  “Deborah Turness was answering a question about how we described the father of the narrator in our Warzone film. She did not imply that Hamas are not a single terrorist organisation.”  Oh yes she did. 

Pod picking

There's a new entrant in the field of podcast charts - mowpod. The current version for the UK is dominated by "The Rest Is..." variants.  The highest rated BBC entry is the Test Match Special podcast from Radio 5Live, at 21.  Newscast is at 30, and Rugby Union Weekly, again from 5Live at 34. 

One BBC

Lead story on yesterday's 6 O'Clock News on Radio 4 ?  The disclosure that thousands of Afghans had been secretly fast-tracked into the UK after a data breach in the Ministry of Defence. 

The story came third in the 6 O'Clock News on BBC1, with coverage starting 14 minutes in.... 

Annual Report 2

Now the Lineker salary anomaly is fading away (the BBC should have reduced it five or six years ago, when it became isolated way ahead of the market), we can look for others. 

Stephen Nolan's salary is unchanged on last year, but, at £405k+, he has a weekday morning show on Radio Ulster reaching around 250,000 listeners, 150-odd weekend outings on Radio 5Live and 20 regional Nolan Lives on BBC Northern Ireland. Hardworking, no doubt, but should he really be the third highest paid journalist in the disclosure table ? And the seventh highest paid in the overall 'talent' league table ?

Tough guys ?

 "Today we found out that several people have been sacked after a review into workplace culture in the light of the Huw Edwards' scandal"; thus BBC Media Editor Katie Razzall on the Six O'Clock News last night, reporting on the BBC's Annual Report. 

Does this pass a sniff test ?  Is it possible the BBC has sacked people without any of the other 21,000 employees noticing ? 

The report itself doesn't quantify dismissals. In 'bullying and harassment', 46 formal cases were brought against individuals - one was a claim of sexual harassment; 21 were 'closed', 2 were later withdrawn and 23 were still being investigated. Cases were down from 50 the previous year, but took longer, at 119 days, to 'close'. 

21 credible whistleblowing issues came forward, to be added to three still under investigation from 2022/23 and 15 still underway from 2023/24. 10 were upheld, or partially upheld, and no less than 13 are still being considered. 

I refer you to the BBC's response to an FoI request from Deadline, reported in April: The corporation upheld or partially upheld a total of 39 bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment complaints in the three years to March 2024, but only 13 people faced disciplinary action and one staffer was dismissed. In short, when a BBC employee successfully complained about the conduct of a colleague, the perpetrators escaped punishment in nearly two-thirds of cases.

Annual Report 1

Odd and ends from the BBC Annual Report. 

More senior leaders (237 compared with 234) to manage fewer Public Service Broadcasting staff (17,103 compared with 17,201). 

30 'senior leaders' are paid more than £250k, compared with 19 a year ago. 

BBC Sounds account holders static year on year at 4.8m. 

BBC Radio Cymru's cost per listener hour rose from 22p to 25p.

Redundancy payments, to 919 leavers, totalled £69,589,000, compared with 811 sharing £55,261,000 in 2023/24

Revenues at BBC Commercial were up, to £2,155m from £1,859m, yet the cash dividend back to the BBC was cut to £161m, from the previous year's £198m.