Dodgy, Quite Frankly

Some more dates for your diaries. The BBC's final Delivering Quality First proposals go to the Trust on 22 September, and "key elements" will be communicated to staff on October 5th.  But I'm afraid the information-lite hallmark of this palaver will mean, even in October, there'll be plenty of figures and targets, but much less on how they'll be met.

Even at this late stage, there's a possibility that an Orchestra might have to go. Up until the wire, there's been to-ing and fro-ing on allocating cuts between BBC3 and BBC4, with 4 shaving some of 3's money.  Sport are heroes for the F1 deal with Sky, but there are still rights at risk, including radio deals for 5Live.  Thommo wants to turn off the Radio LW transmitter, but wiser voices are counselling against an early move in this direction - not least to keep Test Match Special available on analogue.

The central finance team are trying to build their own pot of money (for control purposes), but the output divisions are crying foul. In a shameless tit-for-tat, some are winning their full share of the DQF baseline, but at a price of having to absorb inflation as well as hitting the cuts target. The BBC's forecast of 3% p.a. in this equation may be, unfortunately, a little light.