Tim Davie's final meeting with the BBC Board came at the end of March, and someone had booked TVC1, the biggest BBC Studio at Television Centre. Even with thirty-odd in attendance, it seems a rather oversize and sentimental move, given the bulk of the meeting was discussing the need for ferocious cuts over the next three years...
I'm sorry, but I thought I heard BBC News interim boss Jonathan Munro say he believes they've handled the news of cuts more sensitively this time round.
Maybe not. At least five regular BBC freelance reporters in faraway places, covering stories that made the BBC a global force over many years, received this email five days ago: "Like all of BBC News more widely, we are facing large savings targets. Therefore, we have decided that we will not be renewing your engagement letter with us when it expires on July 31st this year. World News Content will stop using you."
A prowl round this morning's digital first offerings from BBC on other platforms reveals an item called "Do you take off your shoes indoors ?" by Global Health journalist Kate Bowie. It's in the top six stories on the BBC's TikTok feed; in the top eight on Instagram (alongside "How hot will it get in this heatwave ?" and "Why do people go to Stonehenge for the solstice ?"). Can't find it yet on the BBC News Facebook or Twitter feeds, nor, surprisingly the BBC News main page, or Health page (as, presumably, curated for me).
Is this why we can't have the World Tonight and Midnight News on Radio 4 ?
First, a reminder that what we've been told so far represents just half of the cuts that BBC News has to make by the end of the financial year...
BBC News interim boss Jonathan Munro said axing The World Tonight after 56 years was a "very difficult decision... it's excellent, it's a very, very strong journalistic offer. But we make another programme called Newshour, from the same newsroom... so we can make one programme for two audiences, which is obviously more efficient". Yes, yes, Jonathan - so why not just merge most of R4 and the World Service in English ?
Yet the BBC's position on Charter Renewal is that it wants the Government/Foreign Office/Ministry of Defence to pay for all of the World Service from 2028. Will they be able to 'claim back' for the 10pm slot on Radio 4; will they claim for the overnight bulletins that sustain Radio 2/5Live and Local ?
And here Munro on the future of the News Channel: "We're going to make it increasingly global in its focus, and that's because the audience for the News Channel is growing around the world, it grew in the last twelve months, it's not growing in the UK, and actually there's a revenue opportunity there with the News Channel outside the UK". If I were Lisa Nandy, I'd want to see the books for this. And get an explanation of why the BBC seeks continued public funding while ceding UK audiences to the growing GB News.
Matt Brittin has followed traditional BBC routes to savings. Which are not strategic. So that's a bit disappointing.
Think of broadcast channels as taps, which provide a fairly continuous service everytime you turn them on; you recognise what comes out, and you leave it on if you like it. It's true of radio and tv, both of which will continue to live alongside 'content' (programmes by any other name) delivered by the internet.
If you're moving from taps to provide 'content', to making little plastic bottles of 'content', to be chosen from the shelves of iPlayer, Sounds and Other People's Platforms, then you need to make two decisions: which content survives in the little bottles, and which taps should be turned off. Turning taps off half-cock at source satisfies no-one.
Sadly, Mr Brittin has started off by making tap delivery of Radio 4 and BBC1 as intermittent as the provision of H20 by South East Water.
Radio 4, a channel that people go to bed with, and wake up to, will have a current affairs programme at 10pm which will refer to "The British Prime Minister". It will have no major dedicated bulletin at midnight, til 6am. It's a move which won't help Today audience figures. It's a big stutter in the Radio 4 service flow and a kick in the teeth for a World Tonight team which thought it was just fighting a nasty new rota pattern. (I will return to the logic for the decision offered by Jonathan Munro...)
On BBC1, Breakfast on Sunday disappears, to be replaced by programming from a News Channel which will have even "more of an international focus... building on the growth in viewers outside the UK". The perfect answer to the rise of GB News, eh ?
Elsewhere, BBC Local will lose 90 jobs "with more to come", and the Nations will lose 250. All coming ahead of the appointment of new Director of News, ahead of the big strategic decision on which taps to turn off, and all apparently more important to Matt than cutting 700 jobs in "Corporate". Is that, by the way, another 10% cut ? Is "Corporate" 7,000 strong ?
By the end of the day, BBC News managers may have to recall that Italian graphic artist to create a new imaginary backdrop for Sophie, that more properly reflects the number of staff.
GB News reached 4,047,000 viewers in May, according to BARB, back up from April's 3,726,000, but still down on 4,229,000 in March.
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 ?
