Suddenly, the phantom was gone

There are many runes to read in the departure of Erik Huggers, Director of Future Media & Technology, from the BBC, and from my distance I won't call all of them right - but it looks like victory, in part, for the old guard, and a return to the way things were.

Some people in Microsoft were allegedly both surprised and pleased at the hiring of Erik, in May 2007, and Sharon Baylay, in May 2009.  Erik's total BBC package last year was £407k. Sharon's was £376k.  Both stood to lose substantially from the move to close the executive FURB scheme, topping up their pensions. Both, if they had stayed, would be responsible now for cutting 25% of their departments - Sharon's from a very low base.  In the heady speculation of change at the end of last year, as Sharon departed, and Lucy Adams and Peter Salmon left the Executive, our Erik - whose management style was sprung from one glossy powerpoint created every six months - was said to see himself as a possible successor to Mark Thompson.  Clearly, over Christmas, something changed.

Before the division of Future Media & Technology was created in the Thompson re-structure of 2006, "technology" was king of all kit, equipment and software, the inheritor of the old "Engineering" division. Now, under John Linwood, the technology old guard, who love circuit breakers, buzz bars, flood wiring, system architecture and arguments about bit-rates for transmission, have got control of their toys back. But at a price - John is off the top board, reporting to Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson (now with one less rival to succeed Mark).  John, though he has Microsoft in his deep background, flies helicopters. And probably has his own soldering iron.

The software/I-player side of the operation goes to Ralph Rivera, who does get to sit on the Executive. He'll be surprised at the elevation, having only joined in October, with a background largely in computer gaming.  Staff will be looking forward to the declaration of his salary level.

After the policy of letting a thousand flowers flourish online, there are still some hard things to be done. Journalism online has already been constrained, with the creation of the Byford Gap, and will take hits in the cuts to come. They've also lost design control to the new central style police - one success for Huggers. 

But Vision, under Jana Bennett, have now wrested back control of their online propositions -and Audio and Music Interactive sails on trying to make tv out of radio.  Is my theory of a single "output" controller going to emerge from "town hall" meetings about how to make 20% savings ?