Marylebone

BBC alumni of 35 Marylebone High Street might be surprised to learn that one of their landlords was Conegate - the property vehicle of mucky pictures and West Ham magnate David Sullivan.  He's sold the 999-year lease on to the Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, for £32 million, and the BBC will handover the essentially-empty 48,000 sq ft in six months.  The BBC had been trying to find a sub-tenant for the space, at around £800k a year - so presumably had some years to run on its tenure.  It doesn't look like the BBC received cash for quitting in this deal - but they probably don't have to put it back into original condition - and over the years, it's had substantial modification.  So the saving goes in the "costs avoided" column, not "cash in hand".

From the mid-17th century the land at the back of the site was denoted as "pleasure gardens", with bowling greens, gardens and walks - and gets a mention in The Beggars' Opera. Entrance was through the Rose of Normandy tavern, on 35 MHS.  In 1738, the area was partially enclosed for concerts and theatrical performances. An organ was installed, and G F Handel was among the performers.

The site was built over in 1778.  The Rose Tavern kept going, and 1856 added a music hall - The Marylebone - at the cost of £8,000 for proprietor Sam Collins.

I can't instantly track down when the BBC acquired the building - probably for the Radio Times in the 1950s ? The Listener was there in the 70s, and over the years it's played host to Training and Development, BBC London and the BBC Trust.

Bargen

It's not just at the BBC where the deals-to-go seem sometimes overly generous. Iona Jones left her job as Chief Executive of S4C last July.  In 2009 her package was worth £161k - and, despite her departure, this year's accounts show payments of £158k.  Her continuous service with S4C had started in 2003.  The £158k seems to be the price paid to avoid an industrial tribunal - which might well have been fun.

That strike in graphics

You can hear and see, rather too obviously, a plan clunking into gear at the BBC.  Huw Edwards sets the tone with a zombie background..

Around the country (though not, oddly, in London) the regional opt-outs offer more zombies in "specially extended bulletins" (presumably because the 6.30pm offerings got wiped out in Murray-mania). This from Look North for Yorkshire.

But the graphic didn't appear to have reached BBC Look East, who had clearly made their own.

Market Forces

The idea that the BBC is in some sort of contract tussle with David Dimbleby, a la Cesc Fabregas, is hugely amusing - and it remains entertaining that the Media Guardian believes it.  For a tussle to take place, somebody else has to want his services.  Apart from Sky tweaking BBC and ITV tails with presenters now whistling through their teeth (Attenborough D in 3D; Barg M in South Bank Show) and Des Lynam and Adrian Chiles making sad transitions to ITV, who else requires Dimbleby's services ?

Deal or no deal ?

The Telegraph claims to have some of the figures in the BBC's forthcoming Annual Report. It says Deputy DG Mark Byford got a pay-off of nearly £950k, and Director of Marketing & Communications, Sharon Baylay, £390k.  It seems to me the Baylay deal is the one that's odd.   Here's part of the BBC's rules on redundancy - found via FOI.

Byford's final salary was £475k.  Thus £950k seems about right, given that he joined in 1979.  Baylay's final salary was £310k, but she'd only been in the job two years.  By my calculations, that would produce a redundancy payment of just under £52k.   Did the BBC really add another year's salary for "notice" - if so, why ?

Whinge fest

There's no doubt that the House of Lords Communications Committee has hit the nail on the head when it says it's too complicated to complain to the BBC - but sadly, the solutions proffered by m'Lords are no answer. Here's an entertaining chart compiled by the Committee (who are clearly pleased with their work, and suggest the BBC should put it online straightaway).

The committee wants the Executive to "exec" (with the DG still as chairman, which will please Thompson and Patten); it wants the Trust to stick to "governance"; and Ofcom to be the "regulator". So major shifts would be required to make Ofcom the ultimate arbiter of complaints about "accuracy" and "impartiality".

I really don't mind who rules on "accuracy"; quangos CAN do it - and I've always admired the robust approach of the ASA to dodgy advertising claims. It is, however, impossible to measure impartiality, and the BBC has always struggled to find ways to "prove" that, particularly over time. An impartial course through difficult issues can change direction as the story unfolds, and is best steered by experienced editors within the organisation. The check and balance should be with the Trust, representing the licence-fee payers, not the quango OFCOM, representing the Government.

One suggestion from the Lords is naive and wrong - that all complaints be directed to BBC Audience Services. The listener/viewer these days is in constant contact with programme teams through email and Twitter - and producers have to make a sensible call as to when a comment is a comment; and when a comment is a complaint; and when a comment requires a correction - e.g. using pictures of Sian Phillips in an obituary of Margaret Tyzack. Output teams shouldn't be isolated from that immediate dialogue.

A little knowledge...

I suspect they rubbed along ok when together in the ineffably-named department of Knowledge at the BBC
- but did George Entwistle know how much Emma Swain was paid; and who will set her next salary ?

Controller BBC Vision, George Entwistle, has announced that Emma Swain, who was "Head of Knowledge" when George was "Controller of Knowledge"; and who has been Acting "Controller of Knowledge" since February, when George moved up, is now confirmed in the post.   In August 2010, George's salary as Controller was £189k - whilst his Number 2, Emma was on £217k.

George is now the 'half-price' Controller of BBC Vision - at a mere £270k, compared with Jana Bennett's peak of £536k.  No need of much of a rise for Emma then - except, of course, that her role as "Head of Knowledge" will not be replaced.  How will she cope ?

Fashion victim

Never mind Habitat going under; the Manchester Evening News suggests that TJHughes - Liverpool's longest-serving provider of cheap clothes and more - could be on the way out.  Established in 1912, it's key sale was of brown check hipsters, leather belt and a Ben Sherman, to William Rogers aged 12 in 1963, when his mother must have been in a very forgiving mood.

Guide book

It's two weeks to the publication of the BBC Annual Report, set for 12th July, which should mean all the copy is in the hands of the printers. The report is usually a celebratory, glossy document - but will it have a DQF feel this year ?  Viewers, licence-fee payers, staff and the popular press have become much more interested in metrics over the year - the cost per listener/viewer hour, the funding by channel, the Executive Board salaries and perks, Mark Byford's severance deal, etc.  The photos have become a distraction.

However, there will be an inevitable section on A History of The World in 100 Objects; and another on Sherlock - the current (and too-oft-repeated) radio and tv code words for "quality" and "innovation".  The future ?  Well, despite a series of anodyne "workplans", the shape of the BBC over the next six years is anyone's guess until at least September, when the Trust reconvene after France and Tuscany. A glossy brochure then would be nice.

• The BBC world is changing. Twitter spotted Jana Bennett at Glastonbury, and Andy Parfitt at the second Aung San Suu Kyi lecture at the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House. Andy, however, was wearing a white vest.

Desperado

It was a week at the bottom of the trio we're tracking on US news networks for Piers Morgan.  His CNN show propped up the table behind Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Dr Drew on CNN-run HLN. Top of the league is still Hannity on Fox.

Morgan's tactics (or his team's) smack of desperation.  Monday saw a Ryan O'Neal interview, Tuesday La Toya Jackson, Wednesday Christiane Amanpour, and Thursday Barry Manilow. For Friday, Piers got an 8pm slot for Tatum O'Neal and re-ran the Ryan interview at 9pm, returning an extraordinarily low 78,000 viewers amongst US 25 to 54 year-olds.

You wait ages for a flat, then...

Westfield are testing the water with a plan to expand their Shepherd's Bush site east/west and north/south. They're talking about a £1bn "regeneration plan" (i.e. not all their own money) to create 1,700 homes and another 500,000 sq ft of shops.

People with reasonable memories will know that Westfield do not always move fast.  The W12 complex was originally due to open in 1994, but only made it in 2009. But this new masterplan for the area, developed by Allies and Morrison (who brought you the Media Centre and the Broadcast Centre) must put a question mark in the minds of would-be purchasers of BBCTelevision Centre.  Can White City really generate enough punter interest for TWO developments with serious residential aspirations at the same time ?

Vanishing ?

Head to the Channel 5 website, type in Vanessa Feltz, and lo, a sad, but perhaps inevitable message: "Sorry, The Vanessa Show isn't currently scheduled to be on any of our channels".

This week at 1415 weekdays, we have Law and Order; next we have CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

The Mirror reported Vanessa's exit a little prematurely in March; she'd simply been moved from before lunch to after.  I think I called it right in May.  But maybe Mr Desmond still has something up his sleeve for the hardest-working woman in the business ?

Beating the bikinis

The Press Gazette has helpfully provided some measure of the relative performance of the BBC News site and the Mail Online. Using UKOM/Nielsen data, they reckon that the BBC news website had 11.14m online readers/viewers in May, compared with 6.3m readers across the month for Mail Online in the UK.

The most recent monthly ABCe figures indicated 77.25m worldwide unique browsers for Mail Online. The BBC does not publish separate figures for "News" in the UK or Worldwide, other than an annual figure. Alexa, which uses different metrics, puts BBC Online at Number 44 in the world, and estimates 25% of its traffic is for "News"; Alexa puts the Daily Mail at Number 130 in the world.

The sites are clearly after different audiences, and are chasing them in different ways.  The anxiety I have is that the Mail should even be close.  Helen Boaden said last year she now has 9,000 staff across News - now matter how few have 'online' in their job title, in a multi-media world, the BBC, both at home and abroad, should be out of sight of the Mail and its rather sad bikini news.  Action required.

Something will turn up....

The sherpas of DQF at the BBC are heading out west to Caversham again this week, to exchange powerpoints on progress or otherwise towards cuts of 20% over six years. All the leaks are about trimming rather than a full razor cut on No 1. The surreal element is a sort of stand-off between the rather relaxed stance of Mark Thompson and Lord Patten, and those doing the financial calculations, who perceive serious black holes in the books.  Thompson's Micawber-ish tendencies have their basis in a series of underspends over recent years; Lord Patten has quietly busted all governance rules to provide £15m or so extra funding for the World Service, and will probably behave in a similar fashion throughout his tenure as Chairman.

Can the money men convince them that this time it's serious ?


.

Under control

Methinks strategy must be back under control at the BBC.  John Tate, Director of that stuff for Auntie, allowed himself a Monday off to participate in the 23rd Medienforum.nrw in Cologne ("Of Media, Might and Mankind").

It's not clear whether or not there was an overnight involved, but there was evening entertainment on offer for delegates....

Be part of the Medienforum@Night after an eventful congress day, get acquainted with interesting guests and spend a relaxed summer evening aboard the MS RheinEnergie. Enjoy fine culinary delicacies and a well-stocked bar, whilst seeing Cologne’s impressive evening atmosphere on our mini cruise along the Rhine.

Faction

There won't be many around to judge the technical veracity of the The Hour, a new six-part drama coming to BBC2. It is set in 1956, and "takes viewers behind the scenes of the launch of a topical news programme in London". This, we presume, is on the BBC (though ITV started in London in 1955) as it features Anton Lesser as "Clarence Fendley, Head of News at the BBC". So we ought to see shots from in and around Alexandra Palace, home of news from 1954 to 1969.

Ben Whishaw plays Freddie Lyon, reporter; Dominic West is Hector Madden, reporter, and Romola Garai is programme editor Bel Rowley. Anna Chancellor is "Lix, The Hour's brave and maverick hard-drinking foreign correspondent". In 1956 ?

The pre-publicity is all about sexual chemistry - but the core subject is Suez.

In 1956, the BBC DG was Ian Jacob, and the Head of News was Tahu Hole, who's worth reading about....

Zzub

The normally-effortlessly trendy and technically-whizzy BEEHIVE CITY site is having a moment or two today, largely reverting to content from July 2010. Perhaps Dan Sabbagh, now buzzing at the Guardian, is the only man who knows how to fix it.

Scramble

The news that BBC Political Correspondent Laura Kuenssberg is off to ITV leaves a hole in the 5Live weekend schedule from July.  She was due to co-host a new programme to be called Double Take, with Manchester-based dj Sam Walker.

If it needs to be a political female to step up, you could chose from Jo Coburn, Vicky Young, Reeta Chakrabarti or Carole Walker. But I suspect Adrian Van Klaveren may try to cast his net wider.....

Pain relief

Et voila !  Lord Patten, the FCO, MPs, the Lords and a little diplomacy have "created" £15.6m of "extra" funding for the BBC World Service over the next three years.  And as we suggested, Patten didn't make a move until he knew he was pushing at an open door.

The FCO has dobbed up £6.6m, and the Trust are "allowing" the re-allocation of £9m previously set aside by World Service accountants for "restructuring" (i.e. pay-offs) and increased pension contributions that are not now necessary.

Whilst the World Service is allowed to decide what cuts will be avoided through this extra dosh, the steer from Patten is pretty clear that it'll go to Arabic, Hindi and Somali broadcasts.

Napoli or milano ?

Anyone smell salami being sliced ?  Ever since the leak of the original strategy review, Putting Quality First, in February 2010, the language of BBC Executives has been that piecemeal cuts applied evenly across divisions are now officially BAD.  But the "testing of the water" that has gone on since then has, bit by bit, pushed us back to the reality that the organisation that will have to deliver all its current services for less money.

First out and saved was 6Music; then the Asian Network; BBC local radio and 5Live will not now merge; Zai Bennett avers that BBC3 is safe; Mark Thompson says regional tv news for Oxford, Cambridge and the Channel Islands is safe; a Helen Boaden briefing (apparently to newsgatherers, who are supposed to be good at reporting) leads to stories of 1,500 jobs to go in "News" (from a total of either 9,000 or 8,000 depending on who you believe) - then the story is squashed; the Myers report on radio music networks reveals a generous level of sub-cutaneous fat in their operation, suggesting major liposuction can be carried out without any risk to the patient; the BBC Trust heads to Wales today, probably with words of re-assurance.

Now strategist John Tate is "socialising" a gentle refocusing of the remit of channels and services, that will pave the way for the traditional salami slicing. Inevitable. The alternative would involve Mark Thompson and Jeremy Hunt saying they got the maths wrong when they rushed through the six-year licence fee deal - and neither fancies that on their record.  

They're coming to...

Spotted by a valued correspondent in Turnham Green this morning.  Less than three miles from Television Centre.   The big question - on its way to deliver, or take away ?

Voicing money concerns

Are we beginning to see cash considerations in the actions of BBC1 Controller, Danny Cohen ?   The autumn will tell.  

He already has Strictly Come Dancing 2011 to schedule; normally that provides a highlight for 13 or 14 Saturday shows from October. Last year there was a form of concordat with ITV, which meant you could see most of Strictly and most of The XFactor - which tied up ITV Saturday and Sundays for 10 weeks from October 14.  

Now, if we add The Voice into the Saturday mix before Christmas, clashes are much more likely. The Dutch version ran to 17 shows; in America they managed to knock out a winner in just 8.   Danny has paid £22m just for two years' rights - I presume production costs are on top of that; doubtless the Daily Mail will raise the issue.   Does this explain the current "harvesting" of Dr Who episodes ?  Cohen said there won't be many Timelord appearances this year, because Stephen Moffatt is also lead writer for Sherlock; Moffatt has twittered that this isn't so - and Private Eye is convinced there's an attack on the costs of special effects and new monsters for episodes coming into production.

The power of politics

Last Monday, CNN carried the first of its sponsored debates between Republican Presidential hopefuls - and shot to the top of the charts at 9pm Eastern for US 25 to 54 year-olds watching "news channels".  Piers Morgan got the night off.   For the rest of the week, Dr Drew eased ahead on HLN, with continuing discussion of the Casey Anthony trial.

Cole hole

It feels like a construction from the days of Jane Austen ("My, Mr Darcy, let us to the parsonage to gather the news"), but the bucolic pastime of "newsgathering" was actually an invention of the 1980s.  Before that, the BBC was divided into "Intake" - reporters, correspondents, the management and deployment thereof - and "Output".   The rebranding of the 80s was actually a cover for the sacking of those deemed too old, too ugly and too slow by the dynamos of Television Centre.

Newsgathering is now the commonplace term, and Sky has had Simon Cole running that operation for as long as most people can remember. Now he's moving back closer to the coal-face, as a Duty Home News Editor. "Look out BBC" tweets ColeySky, soi-disant "old journo bore".   In more ways than one - Sky will be expecting a reasonable raft of applicants from Television Centre for the Cole vacancy.

Ed's view

Ed Vaizey's interview - recorded for yesterday's "Impact of MediaCityUK" conference in Manchester.  The interviewer is Rob McLaughlin, still appearing hosting a politics show on Granada. Rob was an early voice on Five Live Weekend Breakfast - and elicits the fact from Vaizey that he's a "massive Five Live fan"; that he's missing Shelagh Fogarty at breakfast; and that there'd be no future privatisations of BBC channels if the Conservatives were to take full rein on government.  He also seems rather relaxed about the Peel move for Pinewood, which is odd, considering it's still under investigation by the OFT.


Ed Vaizey Interview - Impact of Media City Conference from adam baldock-apps on Vimeo.

The price is wrong

After a period of association with some great name architects, the BBC seems to have spent hundreds of pounds on someone in the office creating a masterplan for the redevelopment of Television Centre.  The multi-storey car park becomes a multi-storey car park, the East Tower, largely uninhabited and uninhabitable, becomes "residential", as does the restaurant block; the doughnut becomes hotel, leisure and studio production; the scenery block (hey presto!) a conference centre; and the news block, Stage 6, becomes offices. Brilliant.

If you have £300m burning a hole in your pocket, and are still not convinced, how about this TVC Caesar's Palace night-time concept.  Yes, this is Wood Lane.

Impact

The Impact of MediaCityUK conference today is being held at The Hive, in Lever Street, Manchester. Google directions recommend walking if you arrive in the city at Piccadilly Railway Station; they estimate it'll take you eleven minutes.

If you choose to walk from MediaCityUK (in Salford) to the event, Google maps suggest allowing 1 hour and ten  minutes.

Opa-City

It's low-hanging fruit, I know, but the BBC Online Workplan for 2011/12 has loads of post-Birt speak-ak. I particularly squirm at "surface" as a verb used with anything other than a submarine.

BBC Online will go further in addressing this challenge by adopting a more effective approach to ‘broadening horizons’, surfacing content from both the BBC and other providers that surprises and delights audiences, in addition to that which initially brings them to our site. We will drive horizontal navigation within and between products and double the number of external referrals to content providers in the markets we share with them.

And from Audio & Music, more impenetrability about its new "product".

The new Radio & Music product will bring together all BBC radio station sites, music events and podcasts into a single, cohesive ecosystem. This will integrate radio listening and music discovery experiences with highly interactive station destinations with programme pages, social media and deeper content, as well as pan-BBC content and external links. The product will deliver on three key promises:


i. A dynamic live experience - as easy as turning on the radio, but with added benefit of track info, live interaction, synchronous video/visual (where appropriate) and opportunities to dive deeper


ii Easy and intuitive access to the best and most relevant audio (and music video) from the BBC – past and present


iii. Music recommendation/guidance from genre-defining talent


Dive, dive, dive. 

Facing several ways

In the oddly-shaped world of Mail journalism, you can complain about the BBC putting its News make-up contract out to tender - and also complain when Fiona Bruce reads the news in glasses and without eye make-up because she has an eye infection.

You can be scandalised (or otherwise) that the BBC may give up F1 coverage (£60m a year) when its current contract ends in 2013.  You can compare that with £22m (over two years) for the rights to pop singing contest, The Voice, landed by BBC1 boss Danny Cohen.

Whatever your view, the Mail now runs an extraordinary number of BBC stories, which makes you think it needs Auntie as much as it seeks to despise it.

• The increasingly sensible Coleen Rooney has found similar problems with the Mail, after a lengthy review of her holiday bikinis by Maysa Rawi.  

Familiar ?

I came across this picture of MediaCityUK and surrounding Salford Quays development on the excellent Sksycraper City forum. It's an unusual angle, coming at it from the north.  Photographer Johnny de Rivative (I hope he doesn't mind this reproduction) says it has a sort of "Ventura Highway" feel.  Staff from the BBC in London will be more quickly reminded of an uncanny resemblance to the Westway....

Nice Views

The more upscale eateries of Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill may be heading for a slight downturn.  When the BBC leaves the iconic Television Centre, it looks like the iconic leadership of BBC Vision will be heading to Broadcasting House, W1.  

Lower ranks and production staff will have to take their chance in the open plan mosh pits of White City, the Broadcast Centre and the Media Centre, just up Wood Lane.  But Entwistle G, Cohen C, Hadlow J, Bennett Z, Klein R and Keelan L (or what's left of them after DQF) will be taking their tidy boxes to the upper floors overlooking Portland Place - with breakfasts, lunches and drinks beckoning at the Langham, Villandry, The Wolseley, Soho, Noho, Mayfair and Marylebone High Street.

When ?  How long does it take to build the extra meeting rooms that these titans of tv will demand ?

Newsbeat 1974

Who were the 20 or so I worked with as a trainee at Newsbeat for three heady months in 1974 ?

Mike Chaney was the editor (now based in Puddletown, Dorset, last heard of campaigning against the closure of community libraries)
Colin Adams was his deputy (last heard of as BBC Head of Television Drama until 2000)
Laurie Mayer was the Monday to Thursday presenter (last seen presenting BBC South East from Tunbridge Wells in 2002 - most often seen here)
Richard Skinner got the Friday gig, and did all the music interviews (still going strong on XFM weekday midmornings)
Roger Gale was a senior producer (now Tory MP for North Thanet)
Karolyn Shindler was a senior producer (now an author, and partner of Henry Kelly)
Paul Heiney was a reporter (now fronting Countrywise on ITV)
Bob Fox was a reporter (now a freelance defence/foreign affairs writer and consultant)
Steve Bradshaw was a reporter (now an indie film-maker)
Wendy ???? was a reporter.

There was a secretary for Mike, and two very nice production assistants.

That's 13 - anyone help with other names ?

How many is too many ?

A valued reader has asked me to write up my thoughts on the "revelation" that the Newsbeat team, serving Radio 1 and 1Xtra, has 52 staff. It surprised John Myers, who has produced a report on Radio 1,1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6Music for the Controller of Audio & Music, Tim Davie.

Let's come at it round the houses.  I've just listened to a 42 minute discussion presented by Trevor Dann (ex R1) with the real Andy Parfitt (Controller, R1, 1Xtra, Asian Network, Popular Music), Paul Robinson (ex R1) and Simon Cole (of indie conglomerate UBC, a major supplier to R2).  It's enormously cosy - only towards the end does Paul take on Andy by saying there are too many managers at Yalding House.

Andy Parfitt is proud to have been Controller R1 for 13 years - but I suspect his time is up.  He talks about the need to protect "the vibe" of the network which comes from living in a building separate to the rest of the BBC.  In the 70s Radio 1's front door was in the old Egton House (connected by an underground tunnel to Broadcasting House) and the live broadcasting came from the Continuity Suite in the Broadcasting House extension, shared with djs and announcers for Radio 2, 3 and 4.   Newsbeat started on the 4th Floor of the extension (Room 4077 - like Mash !), and first used studios that were also used by Today and other news programmes.  In the 80s, Newsbeat moved into an expensively built bolt-on to the Old Broadcasting House, with a newsroom, big studio and small news studio all of its own.  In 1996 (after most of Radio News and 5Live had headed west to TVC), Radio 1 and Newsbeat all moved to Yalding House (Yalding was previously home to Radio 3 and the Music Library).  Dedicated studios all round, trendy warehouse feel, and "vibe".  And enough space to eventually accommodate 1Xtra - and extra staff to produce news for an "urban" network.

Does having "your own front door" make difference in terms of adding "quality" to output of a network of largely sequential dj shows ? I think not. You can walk through open plan offices, huge shops, schools, etc and feel the hot and cold air of different cultures as you go. But the 80s and 90s in the BBC were all about "brands" and "marketing" - and roller blinds with Radio 1 logos were all part of "the identity" and "the culture". The same drive for its own "front door" came from Radio 2, which got its wish with the move to Western House in 2006.  Whatever culture created there went wonky in 2008, with a silo-ed chain of management that fumbled the Ross/Brand late night recording, in an isolated building with bosses off watch.  There are two sides to the current Radio 1 Culture - the oafish side of Chris Moyles broadcasting for far too long about not being paid, and the entertaining side of Chris Moyles and his impressive marathon for Comic Relief.   Moyles is a more important (and dangerous) contributor to the network culture than any building, and overall shouldn't be brought out too often in arguments about "quality".

There's a separate argument that says the Newsbeat team now is much better attuned to the network's ambitions by working physically alongside the producers and djs of Radio 1 and 1Xtra; and the djs are now more aware and supportive of the need for a good news service as a key "public service broadcasting" differentiator with commercial networks.  But that can and should be achieved within a bigger building.

So John Myers, from his commercial radio background, was "surprised" that there were 52 staff on the list.  I reckon there were no more than 20 when I first turned up at Newsbeat as a trainee in 1974.   Then the output was two 15 minute editions every week day (and a brilliant shift pattern of four ten-hour days, no weekends).  The news summaries were written by men in cardigans in the Radio Newsroom, and read by Radio 2 announcers in cavalry twill trousers and sports jackets.  In 1973, Capital Radio launched, winning its franchise from the IBA with a commitment to quality news - at one stage, it boasted nearly 30 staff working on bulletins, as well as an hour-long weekday news show "The Way It Is".

Over the ensuing years, as Ofcom has let most commercial stations off the news hook, Newsbeat has made a good case for "re-investment"; the team write and present all the news output on 1 and 1Xtra nearly round the clock and through the weekends; they also provide top quality documentaries - which used to be the province of specially hired "yoof" producers based in the lovingly-named department CAMP (Current Affairs Magazine Programmes).   Like many other areas, they got substantial web investment and flirted (a little too much for my taste) with video.

Answer the question ! Is 52 too many ? I've no idea. You can produce a radio station from an iPod shuffle if you want - but it doesn't get you many listeners.  I can answer another question.  52 is likely to be a peak. And I would like to remind you that Robin Scott was the first Controller of Radio 1. He was also, simultaneously, the Controller of Radio 2. As was his successor, Douglas Muggeridge.  Jackets and ties are also coming back....

Earner

Always a delight to be ahead of the game. We wrote back in October about the need for a new, specialist BBC Trustee, to look after the long-term future of the World Service, as it moves to licence-fee funding. Now you can apply for the job.

Who could/should it be ? One can probably rule out former Directors of the World Service, Mark Byford, Nigel Chapman, Richard Sambrook, and even John Tusa, as "too close".  Ian Hargreaves, once of the FT and BBC, FCO, Ofcom and Cardiff University seems to tick all the boxes.  Mark Damazer could probably fit it in, from his base at St Peter's, Oxford.   Any other nominees ?

Friday Music, 17/06/2011

One of our cats, Lula.   The other is Bebop.  Director and camera person Catharine Rogers.

Hacks hacked

The you-couldn't-make-it-up element of newspaper phone intercepts continues apace, with the "revelation" that Rebekah Brooks, Chief Executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International, has been told by police that her phone messages were "hacked" more than 20 times by private detective Glenn Mulcaire, when she was editor of The Sun.

The revelation comes in the blog of Sky News city correspondent Mark Kleinman.  (Sky News is this week part of BSkyB, in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has a controlling shareholding; later this week Sky News might have a new "independent" constitution as part of a deal with the UK Government to allow a total takeover of BSkyB by Murdoch.)  The blog post is tagged "exclusive"; I can't find the story yet in The Times or Sun, but it has been picked up by the Independent.

Mark's spin is that the majority of the listening-in came between 2005 and 2006, when "Brooks's marriage was experiencing high-profile difficulties". Rebekah was briefly arrested by the police in November 2005 after alleged "domestic" left husband Ross Kemp with a cut-lip; she was released without charge. Kleinman goes on: "Given that that story did not feature prominently in the pages of the News of the World, it suggests (but does not prove) that the hacking may have been conducted on behalf of other newspaper groups".  Rebekah was editor of the News of The World from 2000 to 2003.

The Bigger Patten

Telegraph Media Correspondent Jonathan Wynne-Jones has gone back to his tape recorder to produce a longer version of his interview with BBC chairman Lord Patten.  At greater length, the language is even more diplomatic about the World Service, but slightly more decisive on a domestic closure or two, hinting that the BBC Executive (and Trust) have dithered long enough about this.

• Yesterday was clearly scheduled to be some sort of bun-fest at the BBC's offices in MediaCityUK, with a visit from Lord Patten, but it's not clear whether or not he completed the journey, after signal failure at Watford.  BBC R&D staged their first internal and online get-together from their Salford base, complete with Anneka-Rice-stylee webcam walkround.  Radio tried to hold a workshop on documentaries, with a gloomy London contingent attempting a cross-country approach to Manchester via Sheffield. The BH team were puzzled as to why they should make this arduous journey in order to hear the wisdom of their London boss, Graham Ellis, keynote speaker.  Meanwhile, in the ritzy urban wine-bar-without-much-wine-themed canteen, there were near riots as the "Soup Loyalty Card" scheme was discontinued. 

Lordly progress

Lord Patten is attempting a tour of the BBC's facilities at MediaCityUK today - subject to satisfactory delivery by Virgin trains.  Services are, at time of writing, struggling with signal problems in Watford.

I'm not sure how many will be in the greeting line - Peter Salmon, The Chair Champions, Social Engineer Alan Bainbridge ?  Presumably it makes more sense in the long term for the chairman to know his way round the exotic Bridge House, Dock House and Quay House rather than learn the geography of The Spur, Stage 6 and The Horseshoe Car Park at fire-sale Television Centre.

Europe First

I'm delighted that BBC Worldwide's Jana Bennett has finally delivered herself of the keynote speech at the Banff  World Media Festival.  I'm sure the North American delegates will be delighted to hear her message, that the BBC Global iPlayer is rolling out in Europe first. Will she have beaten her 2008 record of 4796 words plus showreel ?

It's not clear whether or not she snuck in a visit to the LA Screenings en route this time; according to Video Age International the BBC sent a healthy delegation of nine (Zai Bennett, Sue Deeks, Janice Hadlow, Dan McGolpin, Angie Stephenson, Taylor Thompson, Jane Tranter, David Weiland, Bun Scrase-Dickins) - odd, when Auntie's supposed to be cutting back on US acquisitions.

Radio daze

John Myers' report on "synergies" within Radio 1, 1Xtra, 2 and 6Music was compiled on his own over eight weeks of interviews and observations, and whilst it might read like a searing insight to outsiders, it also feels in part as if compiled after a series of whingefests in local hostelries and wine bars.

There are two recommendations that won't have come from the bosses and staff.  Unhappiest with the report's outcome will be the Studio Managers of Radio 2's Western House. Nobody can have been clearer than Myers that most music presenters should operate their own studios, rather than have somebody adoring them through the glass.  The idea that these music networks should share studios and premises is also blindingly obvious, but will read as daring counter-culture to the radio nephews and nieces of Jenny Abramsky.

The bits that read as if dictated over Sam Smith's or Sergio's Valpolicella are about reducing charges from news, property, regions etc and putting Friday Night Is Music Night out to tender.

The big recommendation that Tim Davie has chosen to ignore is that that a single controller could sit astride these four stations, with perhaps a lower-graded manager dedicated to each channel. This is a big missed opportunity when there is a clear requirement to reduce both the numbers and salaries of BBC executives.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Buckland, the attack dachshund of Talksport, is complaining that Tim Davie has ignored the exhortations of the NAO to conduct this review across all BBC network radio, including 5Live, and wishes that the detailed version of the Myers report were published.  I suspect that 14 pages, including coversheet, is all there is for eight weeks work.

Running story

So, as discussed earlier, coverage of the Casey Anthony trial continues to drive Dr Drew's audience on HLN - topping both Piers Morgan on CNN and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC for most of last week, in figures for 25 to 54 year old US viewers.

Spinning the colour wheel

I rather hope Mark Byford didn't stay up too late for his birthday yesterday.  At 1.00am on his tv, he might have caught a glimpse of "Newsday" on BBC World/The News Channel - and yellow.

One of Mark's major investments in "journalism" was the very expensive employment of designers Lambie-Nairn, who deemed that blue, grey and other shades of the same would no longer be the colours of BBC News; from now on it was China Red, with a strictly limited palette of accompanying colours.  All round the country, sets were rebuilt  in regional newsrooms, with new titles featuring the red spinning globe plus various shards of whizzing geometry adding spurious dynamism.  This vast investment would unify "Journalism", and establish an instantly recognisable "brand" worldwide.

There has been some loosening of the rules; a little blue has been appearing at 10pm, to complement Huw Edwards' "tan".  BBC Breakfast owns a few shades of orange, alongside the China Red sofas. But yellow has not been seen since Mark Byford left the building.  Not, at least, until this week.

Not convinced it's yellow ?   Here's the backdrop for UK presenter Babita Sharma.

Can't be long before we see green....

Expressionism

I never fail to be astounded at the way expert puppeteers can get a huge range of expression from a very limited set of features.   Partially nicked from Guido Fawkes.

Property ad

For Sale - Television Centre, London W12; one previous owner, an Aunt, who has knocked her about a bit.

Available 2014/15. Bids accepted for the freehold, but if you've got some daft plan for a visitor attraction, we might consider working with you. However all the previous flummery about a "Creative Quarter" or new home for QPR was just kite-flying. We need the money; there's no guide price. Some of it will have to be knocked down, and some of it, sadly, is listed.  We're hanging on to the Romanian office blocks of White City, and we're trying to work out where to put a new control room.

Please reply to Richard Deverell, nearly-but-not-quite of MediacityUK, Salford Quays or Caroline Thomson, White City.

• Clearly, very few buyers have been beating a path to the BBC's doors since it first announced an intention to get out of Television Centre in 2007 - this despite an ambitious masterplan for the wider area, by Rem Koolhaas.  The "Creative Quarter" was 2010's idea - with a conference at White City and speeches from Mark Thompson.  In December came a flirtation with the moneybags behind QPR, which always seemed an unlikely marriage to this writer.     On price, my wild guess now is that the BBC will be lucky to get over £30m for the 14 acres; the combination of listed bits and lack of air con in most of the site means tricky demolition or major refurbishment to deliver either offices or residential.  I think the Evening Standard is way off at £300m; there's currently 13 acres of greenfield near Ickenham Tube station available for £8m (inevitably without planning permission). The benefit to the BBC in getting out is costs avoided in maintenance, repairs and management; the cash will only just cover the building of a new switching and control centre. 

Court reporting

In the spirit of fairness to an Englishman struggling to earn a buck abroad, may I point regular readers to this New York Times piece about the current success of CNN's HLN (formerly Headline News) channel ?

It's coverage of the murder trial of Casey Anthony in Orange County Court, Orlando. that's driving up the channel's figures - even in the evenings, when tv shrink Dr Drew Pinsky ruminates over the events of the day, and beats both Piers Morgan on CNN and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.  Overall HLN has doubled its viewing figures since the trial started at the end of May. Casey is accused of murdering her two year-old daughter Caylee back in 2008 - the prosecution will seek the death penalty.

At home with Lord Patten

Yesterday I took a prowl round Lord Patten's comments about the World Service to the Sunday Telegraph; here's a few thoughts about his domestic strategy.

First, the giving of the interview. It's billed as his first newspaper interview since his appointment to the BBC - "setting out his agenda".  Oddly short, then, at 800 words (many of them those of media correspondent Jonathan Wynne-Jones - where was the more savvy Neil Midgley, assistant editor, media ?)    Oddly placed ?  Perhaps not - the BBC and News International are not best friends - the Times got a leak of the original Delivering Quality First drafts, but it was against Thommo's wishes, and someone got fired.  An interview with the Observer or Independent would be seen as too patsy. The interview is so brief it could have been done on the phone quite late - giving Wynne-Jones and the Telegraph desk little chance to beat it up further.

Patten will have chosen his words very carefully, and discussed the move with Thommo.  There's probably more flesh to come in the BBC's house mag, Ariel, this week - the staff resent reading about changes in the national press first, but have come to expect it.

So to the actual words: "We have to make sure that the BBC is seen to live up to the public service ethos," said Lord Patten. "We have to try to make sure that the BBC is regarded as more efficient than is the case today".  A bit of flag-waving to the Coalition.  Note that previous Governments have believed that the BBC should match Civil Service "efficiency targets".  The BBC announcement of a pay offer of just 2% to staff on less than £60k will have been discreetly communicated to Treasury paymasters in advance. What money on a similar or slightly better offer to nurses, police, etc later in the year ?

He said he is looking to introduce a new system that would prevent pay for senior executives being hugely out of proportion with that of average employees.  This looks like a victory for those who believe in a multiplication scale of pay for public sector - i.e the CEO should never be paid more than 20 times the salary of the lowest paid worker.  This gives you a top and bottom for your salary range, and a curving line joins the two.  Will Hutton's report for the Government in March, favoured multiples, but with no upper limit - just transparency of the calculation.  A move to such a system would end industry benchmarking, and make the BBC much more explicitly a Civil Service career.  It is, interestingly, at odds with those like Pat Younge and Lucy Adams, who think that casualisation is the answer to saving money.

"It's got to be a strategy for dealing with people in the medium and long-term so that would include people who are there at the moment," he said – although he added that current contracts would not be broken. Not only, therefore, has the BBC got a plan for changing executive remuneration, there's an implementation plan - Pat Younge and Lucy Adams will be given time to move on, but their replacements will be cheaper.

He signalled that either BBC 3 or BBC 4 could be lost, but stressed that he hadn't "issued a death sentence" over them yet. This has provoked a row on what was or wasn't said.  Someone was presumably listening in to the interview from Mark Devane's communications team at the Trust and eventually issued a denial that a decision had been taken.  This is a not a denial of that 3 or 4 could be on the list of cuts posted to The Trust by The Executive.

The full proposal will therefore be interesting, and may be more of a repositioning than might be anticipated, effectively ending both 3 and 4 in their current guise.   BBC1 - mix unchanged; BBC2 - strengthened in drama, documentaries and (high) culture; BBC Extra (where there was BBC3 and 4) - strengthened in popular culture and live music.   Then, in daytime, a merger of Cbeebies and CBBC so that transmission costs are reduced; a variant could see Cbeebies on BBC2 in daytime - thus protecting jobs in Salford.  

"I think we're bound to face some tough decisions in the area of sport. It's extremely difficult for the BBC to bid for as many sports rights as it would like".   Essentially, farewell to F1. Even at four or five hours a race.

Let's rock

Emma McInnes and Andrew Robertson presenting BBC Alba coverage of the Rockness Festival. Please watch the whole opening on iPlayer.  There is no Gaelic word for "portaloos".  There is no word for Andrew's shorts.

Strings attached

Can someone remind me what BBC Alba is for ?   I'll return to Saturday's coverage of the Rockness festival when it reaches iPlayer.  It seems to have had Gaelic presenters.

It was followed by Dolly Parton: Live From London - a show at the O2 recorded by Dolly's production team in 2008, and first shown by the BBC on BBC2 in January last year - and since given a two run-outs on music-loving Richard Klein's BBC4.

On BBC Alba last night, it was just there - complete with watery BBC Alba logo in the top right of the screen. No Gaelic subtitles, no Gaelic ditties, no clear rational.   Yet it was promoted by BBC Alba as a musical highlight of the month.

Are they chasing audience figures wider than their service licence ?   It talks about Gaelic culture, Scottish music and arts - but there's no mention of Tennessee, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville or the Great Smoky Mountains. There was a violin player in her band.  Watch out, therefore, for Menuhin retrospectives, Stephane Grappelli tribute bands, and Nigel Kennedy interviews - just for you on BBC Alba.

Surely not ?

David's ex, Josceline Dimbleby, says the great man advised his children to watch the Royal Wedding on ITV, after Huw Edwards got the gig.

This from Cassandra Jardine's interview in the Telegraph earlier this week.

....she says, “I’ve never had much confidence in myself; it can be dashed at a stroke.” Perhaps being married for 33 years to David Dimbleby made her self-esteem as vulnerable as a souffle. He comes across as supremely secure on Question Time. “No one is as confident as they seem,” she says, hinting that this has been a difficult time for her ex, who was passed over to present the Royal Wedding in favour of Huw Edwards. She’s thrilled when I say Edwards fell distinctly short of Dimbleby-standards, in my eyes, and reveals that he advised their children to watch ITV.

Punchy

One naughty aspect of journalism is looking for a punch-up when there isn't one.  It's been the subject of debate between the Today programme and writer Graham Linehan - was he "ambushed" by the appearance of Michael Billington (a highly unlikely rottweiler) when interviewed about his stage version of The Ladykillers ? (Miranda Sawyer gives the item a clever review in The Observer)

I think the Sunday Telegraph subs are more culpable, with their headline today "Lord Patten vows to save the World Service from cuts".  There's no such phrase in any direct quote from the interview - and, indeed, this experienced politician and mandarin seeks deliberately to avoid the language of confrontation.

Here are the relevant direct quotes. "I hope that with the Foreign Secretary we can successfully mitigate the effects of some of the decisions which were taken. I'll be talking to him reasonably soon. I know he regards the World Service as an important part of this country's soft power and I'm sure that with goodwill and without megaphones we'll be able to sort it out. I'm hoping on Arabic services we will be able to protect that as something that is at the core of what the BBC is doing. I'm very keen on the Somali and Hindi services as well. The issue is can we restore some of what was going to be lost and I hope we can."

So just a reminder of what is gone and unlikely to return: five full services - Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian, English for the Caribbean, and Portguese for Africa; radio programmes in Azeri, Mandarin Chinese, Russian (save for some programmes which will be distributed online), Spanish (the remaining residual service for Cuba), Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian; shortwave distribution in Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, and the Great Lakes service for Rwanda and Burundi.

Let's that hope "Fat Pang" has already used his basic commonsense and acquired knowledge of the Foreign Office,and ascertained that he's pushing at an open door on mitigation (not reinstatement) of the cuts for Arabic, Somali and Hindi.

I'll try to take a look at Patten's domestic strategy in another post.

Gongs-a-go-go

Can we detect a media-friendly hand in the latest honours list ?

The BBC usually gets four, but, indirectly, has done much better.  Sir Bruce Forsyth, Dame Jenni Murray, Tim Brook-Taylor and Graeme Garden OBE, Bob Harris OBE, Brooke Kinsella MBE (Eastenders and knife crime campaigner) and Claire Martin (jazz singer and Radio 3 presenter).  Seven - and there may be more.

Easy peasy

Ray Snoddy's Newswatch this week offered a viewer a chance to be a news presenter - this of part of a wider debate about quality of the BBC's current roster of on-screen talent, and continuing assertions of "how difficult can it be ?"

So it was good to see a run out for specialist presentation trainer Ian Blandford, who works sometimes for the BBC's College of Journalism and sometimes for his own company Brightspark.  I wonder if he'll be giving training to new C4 presenters Matt Frei and Cathy Newman; Mrs Blandford is Jay Hunt.

• The Daily Mail suggests that the departure of Samira Ahmed from the presentation team at C4 News in the recent shakeup was not straightforward. 

Friday Music, 10/06/11

..more for the the video really...


Cold mailman - Time is of the essence from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Radio talent

I'm a little anxious about this year's Radio Festival, which will be held once again at The Lowry in Salford Quays. No problems with the new hosts, Radcliffe and Maconie (despite Mark's description of the duo as "widely-acknowledged radio beefcakes.. delivering some much needed glamour to the proceedings").

The star, and only, guest announced so far is TV Dragon Duncan Bannatyne, who will apparently be on a panel talking about the best ways to manage and motivate talent.

Duncan was once part owner of a radio station, buying into A1 FM (Darlington, Aycliffe and Beyond - The Best Music, News and Local Views - 103.2  Just for You) in 1996, after its launch in November the previous year. In 1997, it became Alpha FM.   Duncan's vehicle was Radio Investments Ltd - he sold his interest in 2000. The company was bought by the Guardian Media Group and Caledonia Investments - and John Myers, current chief executive of the Radio Academy, was put in place as Chief Executive.

The 103.2 frequency is now used by Star Radio North East.

Duncan's on air experience is with Radio 2, with a documentary for ex-Radio Academy chairman Bob Shennan, last year, entitled "Can Money Make You Happy ?"

Bubblin'

At times when the BBC is looking to save money, there are different drivers behind the work of the BBC Correspondents - and survival is a strong instinct.  The "appearance" log - a simple tally of pieces used on key bulletins and outputs, regardless of quality, insight or other added value - used to be the tool used to define success, failure, bonus etc at the end of the year.  And it still may be at work.

Yesterday, NASA issued a press release about "the turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles" discovered by the Voyager probes at the edge of our solar system.  On the Radio 4 Six'Clock bulletin,  BBC News Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh had a report cued up with the news.  On BBC1, the Six O'Clock News had a report from BBC News Science Correspondent David Shukman, from NASA in Pasadena, which made no mention of the magnetic bubbles. Later that day (last updated 23.11) BBC News Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos had an online version of the story, including a NASA graphic of the heliosphere and an archive video clip of BBC News Science Correspondent David Shukman with models of the probes.  (The same graphic led Jonathan's stories posted on 14 December 2010,  9 March 2011,)

This morning, BBC News Online has a new piece from BBC Science Correspondent David Shukman in Pasadena - it reads a little like a transcript of his Six tv piece, and still makes no mention of magnetic bubbles - though there is a link to Jonathan Amos' earlier piece.  It's headlined "To boldly go beyond the solar system".   The drama is a little spurious - it'll take a decade for the probes to get that far.

That's Pat

Congratulations to Dame Patricia Hodgson - thwarted in the race for both Chair and Deputy Chair of the BBC Trust, she's now heading to Ofcom, as Deputy Chair there.

Her commitment as a BBC Trustee was for two days a week - remuneration should have been £35,935 pa, but in these austere times, all Trustees have taken a voluntary hit, down to £32,952.  At Ofcom, as deputy chair, she'll get £70,000 for two and a half days a week.  She's also a non-executive director of the Competition Commission.  Has she enough time left to devote to her main job, Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge - or is business done at High Table ?

Squeezing the middle

I've been puzzling over the BBC's opening pay offer for the year ahead.  Everyone on less than £60,302 would get 2%, and those on less than £20k will get a minimum of £400.

It looks like a squeeze on middle managers. £60,302 is the notional roof of Grade 10.  Most Grade 11 staff will therefore find their pay frozen.  Grade 11 has been the growth industry of the last couple of years, as departments have replaced posts previously deemed to be at "Senior Management 2" level with this cheaper option. This is all part of the Executive demonstrating to The Trust that they have reduced the numbers of senior managers; they haven't, of course - they've reduced the number of senior managers with capital letters in their grades.

But, being the BBC, it's all a bit murkier than that.  Staff on Grade 2 to 11 get allowances - the infamous UPA 1 or 2; night and half night shift payments, etc.  Over the last decade some staff on Grade 10 and 11 were seduced into offers of SPS ("Special Personal Salaries") which flattered them with a one-off increase to buy-out these allowances, and the promise of an annual bonus to keep things in balance.  Now those bonuses have gone, and most SPS deals are frozen.

It's hard to drum up sympathy for those on £60,000 a year at the BBC in newspapers, and one can't see the unions getting into a lather over their plight.  But the squeeze is unpleasant, nonetheless, and unwelcome when there's no further public strategy to deal with executive pay at higher levels.   Lucy Adams, who fronted the offer, is still on £320,000 a year (with a total package value of £394k).

I can't find the salary for Diane Dumas, Head of Employee Relations, who's negotiating with the NUJ and BECTU, but I'm guessing it's not far shy of £200k - she clearly was able to talk money when joining Auntie from Thomson Reuters, as evidence by this endorsement for Oasis Search.

Diane Dumas, Head of Employee Relations, BBC. My experience as a candidate with Oasis was immensely positive. Fantastic contact throughout a rigorous, multi-stage process. The regular feedback I received was immensely helpful, particularly at offer stage when I was under a lot of pressure from my previous employer to stay. It was really great to be brought into a new organisation in such a positive and professional way. Now working on the other side using Oasis to help fill a role in my team, I can see what a great feel they have developed for finding great candidates that match well in terms of skill set and organisational fit. A great asset in the competitive world of finding talent.

Video killed the....

I was expecting a bit more of a stooshie.  Last night saw the launch of BBC Alba, the Gaelic tv service, on Freeview north of the border, at the expense of most BBC network radio in the evenings.  Kelvin Holdsworth, the Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow, is one of the few dismayed by the swap.

There are a few nice ironies in the Twittersphere. "I've now got BBC Alba which is showing Andy Murray losing in Gaelic". "From what I can gather the main story on BBC Alba is that BBC Alba is now on Freeview".

Interesting to note that on Saturday and Sunday, BBC Alba will have "exclusive" coverage of the Rock Ness festival, featuring Gaelic idols (?) Paolo Nutini, Magnetic Man, Kasabian and The Wombats.  So I suspect the first week's audience figures will be alright...

Allowances

The Radio 2 drive to send more and more production to indies (Bob Shennan has set himself a target of 34% by the end of 2011) has a financial edge to it.  It's evening and weekend shows mainly, and now he's added the weekday overnights - with Janice Long propelled into the arms of Wise Buddah, based in Great Titchfield Street, and Alex Lester to be minded by Somethin' Else of  Old Street.  This follows Weekend Wogan's transfer to Wise Buddah and Brian Matthews' Sound of the 60s move to Unique.

The strategy means the indies bear the cost of "unsociable hours" working, which, thanks to liberal terms and conditions of employment at the BBC, cost in-house production teams big numbers.  Will the indies pay half-night shifts, full night shifts, taxis in and out, and allowances for "Unpredictable Working" ?

Kind of flashy

The indefatigable Alan Yentob is back for another (short) series of Imagine - and this time he's managed to fit in a trip to Venice, following six Iraqi artists to the Biennale. But at 64, Al's showing no signs of slowing down - and was spotted by Oscar (Barry's son) Humphries at a wonderful party. This from Oscar's Vogue diary...

We went to Marco Voena's amazing dinner for Schnabel at a palazzo covered in jasmine. It looked like a film set. His daughter Lola was the DJ and the crowd was the right kind of flashy. Jay Jopling and Alan Yentob were the Brits at this (refreshingly) largely Italian gathering.

Just my sort of do.

Doctor on top

In the new three-way ecology of Piers Morgan's CNN life, Piers is still behind Rachel Maddow at MSNBC in the hearts of America's 25-to-54-year-olds, and, by the end of last week, both got overtaken by tv shrink Dr Drew on CNN's sister channel, Headline News.

What would Huw say ?

Sophie Raworth presenting the 10 O'clock News on BBC One last night...

A puzzled viewer watching the 10 O'clock News on BBC One last night....

Lily gilded

A Freedom of Information enquiry by the indefatigable and improbable "Ms Lily Burlero" has revealed that the current tensions between the BBC World Service and the Foreign Office go back to January 2010.

Lily first lodged her request to find out about £7.7m of Grant In Aid repaid by the BBC to the FCO way back in  May 2010 - with the BBC side only coming forward with their answer last week.  And for fans of financial gavottes mixed with mandarin-speak and BBC bureacracy, the ten pages of redacted emails are a joy.

Briefly, the FCO found a £100m hole in its accounts in late 2009, have failed to protected itself from exchange rate falls for sterling - and predicted a £110m hole for the following year.  Under-secretaries were sent out in all directions to take money from FCO beneficiaries in Janauary 2010 - and the target was to get £11m from the BBC.  The BBC offered £5m, as a mixture of underspend and delayed capital projects.  The deal was struck at £7.7m, but Director World Service Peter Horrocks got a clear warning that there would be a cut of 10% in real terms in his budget the following year.

Meanwhile the tap-dancing by the BBC in response to Ms Burlero's enquiry will have done Auntie no favours with the Information Commissioner's Office.  It took nearly thirteen months to get an answer - just a tad over the requirement to respond within 20 working days.

Let us remember also that this all took place before the General Election - when Miliband, D was at the FCO, and  Gordon Brown was still at Number 10.

Eine Kleine....

We wrote back in April (number 9 here) about the need for clarification of the roles of BBC2 and BBC4. And it seems that George Entwistle has finally stomped his DQF boots on Richard Klein at BBC4, saying lay off comedy and drama, and stick with arts.

With a tiny budget, but an unerring eye for publicity, the two Sky Arts channels have beaten Klein to it, in terms of reputation, if not audience.  With a handful of cheap and cheerful "new" programmes - notably Mariella Frostrup's Book Show and Laurie Taylor's recreation of the old Face To Face interview, "In Confidence" - there's also a reliable diet of classic rock, jazz, opera and orchestra shows from other people's archives.

And despite his apparent new focus, Klein doesn't get music (noted grumpily here, at the turn of the year, at number 6, under the title Scottish Folk Singers In Country Houses).  His promised highlights for the coming year are thin on classical - a series called "The Symphony" is the only mention of pre-20th Century music; Rick Stein gets to boat the Mississippi in search of blues and presumably gumbo, in a rather tired combination of formulae; and there will be four documentaries about "black music acts of the 1980s".  

All this as Roger Wright at Radio 3 moves back to live music every evening.  Another firm kick or two from Entwistle, and we might have some live tv cameras as well - at least say once a week. Then maybe a few recordings of the jazz artists performing sessions for Jamie Cullum on Radio 2.  Not Scottish, but not expensive...

Mister Ed

BBC Comms chief Ed Williams gets the Mail treatment today, for going on a two-month advanced business management course at Harvard, which the Mail says costs £40k.

It does at least mean that Ed at last gets an American trip. In September last year, he booked and cancelled a flight to Los Angeles, for £4782.97.   The BBC recouped all but £206.   I wonder what class he flew out to Boston ?

The BBC spokesman for the BBC spokesman told the Mail "Ed is attending it [Harvard] in his capacity as director of key department and a strategic adviser to the Board".  Headcount in external comms has been almost halved under Ed so far, so perhaps there was a course element on downsizing the downsized.  And the BBC Strategy Team will be interested to note Ed's wider brief to the Board. 

Who needs a doctor ?

It's a dog-eat-dog world on US cable news channels - even when you're working for the same company.  Piers Morgan, on CNN Tonight, has been trying to tweet his way into the hearts of America's 25-to-54 year-olds since January; but over the past week, he's been overtaken in that "key demographic" by pyschiatrist Dr Drew Pinsky, trading as Dr Drew, on CNN's sister channel headline news.

Dr Drew, who has a long pedigree as a tv analyst specialising in addiction medicine, has only been up against Piers since April 4, but the trend over the past month must be a little worrying for the Englishman.

Metadata

Messing around with urls is much more fun than car numberplates.   Someone at the BBC has enjoyed creating "b011ckxs" for episode 7 of the 74th series of Radio 4's News Quiz.

Found via chums who read The Register. 

Plus or minus ?

A new document, woven from old strategies and promises; that's the "BBC Executive priorities and summary workplan 2011/2", published today, under the imprimatur of Senior Independent Director (and Barclays Bank chairman ) Marcus Agius.

It spends plenty of time talking about the challenge of cuts - but when it comes to the money allocated for the year ahead, the changes are so far small beer.  Here's what the estimated totals are for a selection of services and networks, compared with what they actually spent in 2009/10, the most recently available accounts. Do they reflect the trends for DQF ?


                  2009/10             2011/2
BBC1            1,373m               1,421m
BBC3               118m                  109m
BBC4                 74m                    68m
BBC Alba          6.1m                   7.5m
BBC News         64m                    60m


Radio 2               53m                    57m                
Radio 3               54m                    51m
Radio 4             112m                  121m
Radio 5Live        72m                     72m

Asian Network 12.1m                 11.7m

Local Radio       138m                  148m    

BBC Online       199m                  174m


Orchestras           24m                    25m