Ripper ?

Trailed-to-death Ripper Street arrived on BBC1 last night - 6.1m tuned in according to the overnights, but which way will it go ?

Call me increasing old-fashioned and squeamish, but is Sunday night on BBC1 the right place for dramas, however classy, however imbued with "education" about the birth of film and the start of the London Underground, which are really about Victorian snuff-movies and mutilated bodies ?

My enjoyment was not much helped by deciding our star's gurning owed too much to Craig Revel Horwood contemplating a "dis-arster".

Decorum

I spent rather too much of this year ribbing CNN for their investment in Piers Morgan. Here's a little video that suggests more fun is to be had with other network presenters on New Year's Eve.

Review time

Reflections of happier times: in March 2010, the correspondent of the Economic Times of India took tea with Lord Patten of Barnes in the Sea Lounge of the Taj in Mumbai. The good Lord was sporting a baseball cap emblazoned "Member of the Board: Russell Reynolds Associates".

Christopher revealed that RRA first approached him some years ago on behalf of Bridgepoint Capital, a private equity firm that was searching for eminent people to join its Board. Patten took the assignment and soon after, when RRA invited him to join its own Board, he saw no reason to decline. How did he see head-hunting in the noble profession rankings? "Above politics, certainly ," says Patten. "But below cricket."

After the events of 2012, it may be time for lordly reflection.

Auntie undecorated

There don't seem to be any gongs for those who carried the Olympics to our tvs, radios and laptops.

The New Year's Honours list does find room for Jeremy Lloyd, OBE, the remaining half of the partnership with David Croft, who brought us 'Allo 'Allo and Are You Being Served ?  Actor Adrian Lester can probably thank "Hustle" for at least part of his OBE. In other bits of broadcasting, Barry Cox, who helped the UK switch-off analogue telly as chairman of Digital UK, is made a CBE. Darren Henley, Managing Director of Classic FM, collects the OBE.

There's one with a more definite BBC connection - media correspondent Torin Douglas, MBE. Even so, it's for services to the community in Chiswick, where he's run a whole series of festivals and events over the past ten years.

Fontella Bass RIP

It seems one weekend in August 1965, there was a jam session at the Chess Studios in Chicago. Present were 19-year-old blind pianist Raynard Miner and his songwriting partner Carl Smith, Chess producer Roquel "Billy" Davis - and Fontella Bass, 25. Other musicians included session men Maurice White (drums) and Louis Satterfield (on bass) - both were in Chicago group The Jazzmen, later The Pharoahs. Gene Barge was on tenor saxophone. Among the backing singers was Minnie Riperton (who worked with Raynard in The Gems).

The songwriting credit for their effort - "Rescue Me" - went to Miner and Smith. But by 1990, Fontella had got her cut. “When we were recording that, I forgot some of the words,” she told The New York Times in 1989. “Back then, you didn’t stop while the tape was running, and I remembered from the church what to do if you forget the words. I sang, ‘Ummm, ummm, ummm,’ and it worked out just fine.”

Raynard went on to write "Higher and Higher", made into a hit for Jackie Wilson.
Billy Davis went on to write several Coke jingles, including "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke" with Roger Cook.
Maurice White moved on via The Ramsey Lewis Trio to form Earth Wind and Fire.
Louis "Lui Lui" Satterfield joined him, as a trombonist.
Minnie Riperton's group The Gems morphed into Girls Three and The Starlets, Then she recorded with Rotary Connection, and under the names Andrea Davis, before her solo career under her own name.
Gene Barge seems still to playing in Chicago, with The Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings, aged 86.

Billet doux

Here's another FOI disclosure, from a request asking for recent correspondence between the BBC and politicians (excluding complaints).

This is an extract from a letter written by Jeremy Hunt, thanking Mark Thompson for inviting him to the Last Night of The Proms. At that stage, Jezzer had just been moved from the DCMS to Health, and was in reflective mood about his greatest achievement - the licence fee deal thrashed out with Thommo essentially over a long weekend. He talks about it being made possible through trust and openness between them. There are those who regret the process wasn't truly open.

Rock on

The BBC needed 159 people to provide coverage of the Reading Festival over the August Bank Holiday - 93 of them were members of staff. "Most of those working on the event will have been provided with hotel rooms".  And...

"This year around forty tickers [sic] were offered to staff, who had a business reason to attend the event and around 12 staff were offered tickets as rewards for their performance".

From "What Do They Know ?"

Richard Rodney Bennett RIP

Learned correspondents suggest the BBC has undercooked tributes to Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, pianist, singer and composer, who died aged 76 on Christmas Eve, in his adopted New York City.

There's plenty of material. Here are some of my favourites...





And with Claire Martin...

Gratings

It depresses me that Eastenders, with its relentlessly upbeat festive plotlines, has once again come out on top in the Christmas Day ratings. At least the trend is slightly down...

Similar invention in scheduling is demonstrated by NBC in America, but in a good way. The network always shows Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve, and once again this year, it was the top-rated show of the day, with 5.6m viewers - up a tad from Christmas 2011.

Initiative test

One to watch for incoming DG Lord (Tony) Hall - the BBC's Digital Media Initiative. The most recent Executive Board Minutes, from October, are gnomic. Zarin Patel provided an update on the position with DMI, noting that a paper would return to the Board for approval on this topic.

So I went back to the September minutes: The Board briefly discussed the report noting DMI continued to be problematic.  The project was being re-planned and it was agreed that a substantive discussion should return to the Board at the appropriate point.

Hang on. The last time this project came under scrutiny from MPs it was apparently on course to deliver the complete technology for the Programme by summer 2011. 

The project started back in 2008, and was budgeted at £81.7m, but promised to produce savings of £99.6m. The contract was originally placed with Siemens, but by 2011, it had been taken back "in-house"; re-budgeted at £133.6m, and the savings were re-estimated at £95.4m.

Old Ma Hodge will be sharpening her claws on some fresh meat here, methinks.

Days in

It's rather sad. The BBC has published the minutes of George Entwistle's first meeting in charge as Director General of the BBC - and it seems he had a 100 day plan. There were 46 to go when he reached agreement on terms for his resignation.

1.7 George Entwistle outlined the strands of work in the plan for his first 100 days and invited the non-executive directors to become involved in any strands they would like to. The Board discussed the benefit of having an overarching ‘strategy’ strand that pulled together all of the other strands and redefined the strategic objectives for the next 3-5 years. 

1.8 In line with the creative thrust of the plans and further to previous Board discussions, the Board asked about in house production. It was noted that redesign work was already taking place in this area but in house production would fall under the creative excellence strands.

Timing suggests we should get one more set of minutes from the Entwistle era; watch this space.

Twinkly tweets

Some festive tweets that caught my eye in the past 24 hours.

Stay classy in 2013, Talksport, even without Moz...

Crikey, let's hope it runs post-van-Klaveren...

No comment

Window

The transfer window seems to have opened early in the media industry. Talksport has lost its programme controller Moz Dee and sales director Adam Bullock, who have left to form a new company, Contented Digital Media.  Incorporated only last week in the glamour of Station Road, Finchley, Contented is on Twitter, but the link to Contentedgroup.com suggests there is work to do on a website. The sponsored links are also amusing.

Moz, christened Maurice, had early media exposure as the studious Geoffrey Whittaker in P'tang Yang Kipperbang - a perfect preparation for work on the controller's team at 5Live.






Meanwhile another 5Live alumni (he used to do the audience figures) Liam Keelan, is leaving the role of Controller BBC Daytime (that's BBC1 and BBC2) to bolster Stuart Murphy's team as Controller Sky One.

Bare facts

The Naked Scientists have been "saved". Last month we reported that their weekly slot on Radio Cambridgeshire was being axed from the New Year; £40 a week was their fee for an-easy-to-understand-commonsense-approach to topical science questions.

Now clearly some compromise has been reached, and the unclothed ones are to continue in the same Sunday slot - as well as on Five Live, which forms the basis for a weekly podcast. And you'll be able to catch up with them on the iPlayer.

Part of the deal involves Australia, where the forward-thinking programmers of ABC's Radio National are giving the Scientists a regular slot from next summer.

Students

This may be getting too detailed for some readers, but a shy correspondent with some experience of BBC News suggests my Jungle Book analogy for the current state of the division misses the mark. He prefers a D.A.D.A casting (Defence Against the Dark Arts). I am no Potter Head, so I hope publication doesn't cause  more than usual offence...

Boaden: Hermione Grainger
Horrocks: Draco Malfoy
Thomas: Neville Longbottom
Unsworth: Luna Lovegood
Hall: Head Prefect, Percy Weasley

Des res

The BBC's preferred estate agents, Lambert Smith Hampton, made a profit of close to £5m last year. CEO Ezra Nahome told Property Week "The outlook for the UK commercial property market is still difficult, particularly outside London and the South East. That said, revenue so far this year is ahead of last year and we continue to complete high profile strategic projects, such as the recent disposal of Television Centre for £200m".

Birks

Maggie Brown in The Guardian suggests incoming DG Lord (Tony) Hall of Birkenhead should recruit Nick Pollard. This blog got there first.

Maggie misses one significant point. Not only is Nick also from Birkenhead - they are both Old Birkonians. Nick (1961-1968) left with "one and a half ropey A-levels" and went straight to the Birkenhead News as a trainee; Tony (1964-1969) took a more gilded route to journalism, via Keble College, Oxford, to the BBC News Trainee scheme.

Nick moved from print to broadcasting via the Mercury Press, an agency with strong connections with Radio Merseyside. And thence to the microphone - he remembers listeners of BBC Radio Merseyside thinking he was dying on air, after running back to the newsroom for a forgotten script, and dashing back to make the pips. "We had dozens of calls from people telling the producer that I seemed to be having a heart attack on air. It was absolutely impossible to read it out and I always advise people never to run anywhere before you read the news."

While Tony was starting as a news trainee, Nick was already in the BBC Radio Newsroom as a sub, working on summaries. Nick then went back to Liverpool to join the launch team for Radio City (which included Gillian Reynolds and John Perkins).

Mobile Nick then returned to London for a spell with BBC TV News - including, spookily, work on a new programme, Newsnight.  He left again in 1980, this time for ITN, just before Tony Hall arrived as part of the Newsnight production team.

Handheld

We know of radio stations broadcasting from lap-tops, and some powered by iPods. Now Mixlr has come up with an app to run a radio station from an iPhone. Are you listening, BBC Property ?

Out of chaos comes...

Of course, it's not quite back to business as usual in BBC News. Does Kipling, Disney-fied or otherwise help ?

Akela Boaden has returned to the jungle, but Bagheera Mitchell is up a tree and packing his bags. Shere Khan Horrocks is lurking, but Mowgli Thomas is still there as No 2. I can't quite cast Fran Unsworth as Baloo.

Colonel Hathi Hall is just around the corner - and perhaps even writing the ending. Will they all stay in the jungle or move (culturally at least) to the man-village ?

All in the mind

I have a mental picture of BBC Trust Director of Governance, Nicholas Kroll, listening to Patten v Humphrys on Radio 4 this morning, on his Beats by Dr. Dre Wireless Over-Ear Headphones (£249.95).

Alone in the Bland Suite at 180 Great Portland Street, he swivels in the IKEA Torkel chair of Deep Thinking, and reaches towards the beech-laminated IKEA Billy Bookcase of Wisdom. From the shelves he picks a leather-bound book, labelled "BBC Annual Reports: The Glory Years", but actually concealing a paperback copy of  Black's Medical Dictionary.

He furtively fingers the pages "Anger management", and wonders.

Here are some Tweets from yesterday.

Any minute now Lord Patten is going to smash his blinged hand on the table and yell "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" Ian Hyland, Daily Mail

Lord patten unbelievably tetchy at presser a#@bbc on savile report Victoria MacDonald, Channel 4 News 

Always amazes me how wound up Lord Patten gets up by journalists questions despite all his experience... Lucy Manning, ITV News

Chris Patten should release a fragrance called Pomposity. Maybe collaborate with Stephen Fry on it. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times

The helpful BBC website offers basic information about the Jungian concept of confronting your shadow; or more simply put, recognising why you get angry.

The author has these suggestions for actions that might help people vent  frustration and burn off bottled-up feelings.

Try a non-contact competitive sport.
Learn relaxation or meditation.
Shout and scream in a private, quiet place.
Bang your fists into a pillow.
Go running.

The price of gold

Those who have suggested all this might not have happened had Mark Byford still been DDG should note his systems were put into play by George Entwistle, and failed.  From the Pollard Report...

While the question of correcting the blog was effectively put on ice pending the outcome of the investigations by BBC Legal, on 11 October Mr Entwistle established a “Gold, Silver, Bronze” structure to co-ordinate the BBC’s response to the Savile allegations and related matters. 

The ‘Gold Team’ consisted of Mr Entwistle (who was ‘Gold commander’), Lucy Adams, Director of Human Resources, Mr Jordan, Mr Mylrea, Ms Cecil, Sarah Jones (the Head of Legal) and Mr Mosey (who was ‘incident commander’).

Reading stuff so you don't have to. You should !

Selected quotes from statements and the Pollard Report.

Stephen Mitchell: Whilst I feel vindicated that the review has found that I put no undue pressure on Peter Rippon, I disagree with the remainder of Mr Pollard's criticisms in relation to me.

Peter Rippon: On this occasion, I am being judged not about what we broadcast, but what we did not, and this means that will always be questions about whether more could have been done to get the item on air. However, I do not agree that my decision on this occasion was flawed.

 Adrian Van Klaveren: What is of course especially hard to take is that I am leaving 5 live as a result of events which had nothing to do with how I carried out my job here. Rather it happened after I had just begun a temporary role in the most challenging of circumstances.

Stephen Mitchell: It is with great sadness that I have decided to retire from the BBC after more than 38 years’ service of which I am very proud and which I have found greatly enjoyable.

Tim Davie: This morning, the Deputy Director of BBC News, Stephen Mitchell, tendered his resignation which I have accepted with great sadness.

George Entwistle: I am pleased that the Pollard report makes it clear I played no part whatever in Newsnight’s decision not to broadcast the original Savile investigation – just as I was not personally to blame in any way for the journalistic failures on Newsnight when it broadcast its erroneous report about the North Wales care home.

Producer Nick Vaughan Barratt email to George Entwistle (then Controller, Knowledge Commissioning) May 2010, as printed in Pollard Report:  George, I understand jimmy [Savile] is very ill. We have no obit and I am not sure we would want one. What do you think. I have a personal interest here: my first job in TV was on a JS show – I know him well and saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man at first hand – if you know what I mean! Do you have an opinion? Mine is ironic, flawed and fascinating. But all a long time ago! N” Later email: “I’d feel v queasy about an obit. I saw the real truth‼!..”

Pollard report:  It is at least possible that a conversation with Mr Vaughan-Barratt would have given Mr Entwistle some pause for thought about the planned Christmas tributes

Julian Payne, BBC Head of Press text  message to Paul Mylrea, 20th October 2012 ‘Thought of the hour. PR changes blog and accepts he was wrong and goes giving panorama a scalp. GE then goes into Select saying he backed his editor as you would expect. Turns out he was wrong sad but he did the right thing and we all move on???’

Pollard report:. Mr Mylrea told me that the text messages between him and Mr Payne were private communications for the purpose of scenario planning, which were not shared with others, and Mr Entwistle distanced himself from these discussions, saying that that they were a ‘conversation going on in the communications community whose job it is to think about things like that’, but that they did not reflect his thinking.

Pollard report:  It seems clear to me that by 22 October, the blog had been transformed into a document regarded by some as a means of insulating the Director General from criticism. Ms Boaden recalls, earlier in October, Mr Entwistle as saying that he was going to do a public statement “that makes it impossible for Peter [Rippon] not to resign”. In the meeting when Mr Entwistle said that, Ms Boaden says that she offered to take public responsibility and resign if necessary, but that Mr Entwistle refused to accept her resignation.

Pollard's out

There'll be a new Editor and Deputy Editor at Newsnight. That's one of the few clear actions proposed by the BBC Executive, accepted by the BBC Trust, in response to the Pollard Report. Tim Davie, acting DG, says Peter Rippon will be offered another senior role "commensurate with his skills and experience".

The criticisms by Nick of Helen Boaden and Stephen Mitchell are serious - and within moments of the formal publication, it was announced that Steve has resigned.

Pollard focuses on the chaos that followed the Newsnight dropping of its Savile investigation, and largely clears the decision itself as flawed, but done in good faith.

Meanwhile, in response to the later Newsnight broadcast that led to a pay-out to Lord MacAlpine, Adrian Van Klaveren has apparently left his role as Controller 5Live permanently, but will get another senior role in the BBC.

Choreography

There's potentially a lot of paperwork to read for the media correspondents currently locked in at the BBC ahead of today's midday news conference.

They'll certainly have The Pollard Report (into why Newsnight didn't broadcast a story about Jimmy Savile being a paedophile).  It may, or may not, have appendices which are long/redacted/skimpy. The press won't be happy that all  material is not released. The US lobby-against-Mark-Thompson will probably find it hasn't addressed the issue of the DG's "knowledge" from February 2012 til his departure from the BBC. It's seems likely that the BBC will have spent more than £1 million on an investigation which will say Auntie took too long to correct a blog.

They'll probably have the full MacQuarrie report (into why Newsnight did broadcast a report which led to a legal pay-out to Lord MacAlpine).  The summary version only produced lines of action for acting DG Tim Davie - and led to the "stepping aside" of Helen Boaden and Stephen Mitchell, plus the arrival of Karen O'Connor as acting Editor of Newsnight.

Will they have The Mosey Disciplinary findings ? This process was set up to deal with what Lord Patten has called the "shoddy journalism" that led to the MacAlpine settlement.

They will have BBC Trust Editorial Standards recommendations. The Crusted Rolls of Governance have a secret clause which says "there can be no proper media event without a report from us". Thus Entwistle commissioned MacQuarrie and Pollard; so the Trust commissioned themselves, and will share their ineffable wisdom about what should happen next in News - to MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN !

Use my camera

A minor point, perhaps, but who decided that the Downing St CCTV footage of not-perhaps-plebgate should be given exclusively to Michael Crick/Dispatches/Blakeway Productions, and when ?  It's hard to believe that it was any sort of surprise to No 10.

Tourist news

The wide-open spaces of the redeveloped Broadcasting House are all yours, from April 2013, for a 90 minute tour priced at £13.50 per adult.

"Please remember that Broadcasting House is a working building so no two tours are the same, but they will always be informative, interesting and fun".

Night manouevres

The sensitive ears of Radio Today have picked up a not-so-secret pilot for the new All England (plus Jersey and Guernsey) BBC Local Radio show, which will run weekdays 7pm til 10pm from January 7th.

Mark Forrest and his production team in Leeds staged an agreed-takeover of Rhod Sharpe's Up All Night on Radio 5 Live (only as rebroadcast on your local stations) at 2am this morning - and apparently they're doing it again tomorrow. Here's Radio Today's sample of the opening..

Double your seat pitch

Airline tickets seem to be flavour of the month for Freedom of Information requests to the BBC.

Last Monday, we brought you news about centrally-booked flights between the UK and the USA (it took the Mail until Thursday to notice it). From April to September this year, there was one first class ticket, and 51 business class tickets.

Now we learn that demand for bigger seats and more leg room is even more widespread. From January to September, 1,044 flights were booked via the BBC’s agents which were for either business or first class travel. Clearly there were 1,044 justifications for this, accepted by Heads of Department under the BBC rules...

Upgraded travel, i.e. above economy, is not appropriate for journeys of less than four hours. For longer journeys upgraded travel may be justified for business need and, in very exceptional circumstances, on health grounds. In any of these circumstances, the travel must be authorised in writing by Head of Department or above. Examples of business need where upgraded travel might be appropriate include: 

  The necessity to travel with a contributor who has a reservation in a higher class. 
  To take advantage of an additional baggage allowance so reducing the total cost of travel. 
  Where seats are not available in a lower class. 
  Where it is at no extra cost to the BBC. 
  Where the traveller is expected to work straight after a flight of four hours or more.

Pollard Eve

I haven't really anything to say at this time, apart from sledgehammer and nut - and I didn't want to miss the headline opportunity...

Enter stage left

One of the key requirements for a BBC Director of Vision might be a sense of where the camera is. Even if you're "Acting".  Then again, thinking about it, he probably has....

Hooray Henley

I'm grateful to the Henley Standard for noting a connection beyond Jimmy Savile in recent management changes at the BBC.

Lord Hall of Birkenhead, who will become DG in early March, has a Grade II listed home in Henley. He is working with acting DG Tim Davie on other appointments - Tim lives in Peppard, (Greater Henley). 

Eventually Tim will become chief executive of BBC Worldwide in place of John Smith, who also has a home in Henley and is a director of the Henley Festival.

In other odd links, stepped-aside Newsnight Editor Peter Rippon is a former pupil of Gillots School, Henley. And Philip Schofield, who waved a note of names at David Cameron on This Morning, is a resident of Henley.

Oidhche Challainn

Another five-star venue for the New Year's Eve special from BBC Alba. Exclusive, breathtaking unique Achnagairn House, Kirkhill, by Beauly, Inverness-shire.  A wedding and events venue, with 24 luxury bedrooms.

Presenters Derek ‘Pluto’ Murray and Kirsteen MacDonald will be joined by "a host of musical talent" including Manran, Duncan Chisholm, Hamish Napier, Kathleen MacInnes, Rona Lightfoot and Dingwall Gaelic Choir.

I wonder which bedrooms they'll get. Here's a selection....

The bathroom in “Antigua” is tiled in travertine stone from Italy and has two baths, both of which look out over the grounds. Another bedroom and bathroom, “Ring-a-ring-a-roses” has a round shape, complete with a round bed, topped with a circular chandelier. For those with more conservative tastes, “Carpe Diem” has a traditional 4 poster bed, a double aspect view and an enormous bathroom, with whirlpool bath and a separate large shower. Yet another has a hidden safe, original heavy wooden furniture and a bathroom with a naval theme - an artist was commissioned to hand paint ships onto the tiles for us.

The house is owned by Mike and Gillian Lacey-Solymar. Gillian worked for 15 years as a BBC business reporter on programmes including Working Lunch, Newsnight, Breakfast News and Moneybox, as well contributing to the World Service.

Another door opens

BBC journalists looking for resettlement (for whatever reason) might like to dash off an urgent application for the new post of Creative Marketing Manager, Journalism, which closes at midnight on Sunday. 

It's graded at Band 9 - between £38k and £58k. The job sits in the Marketing and Audiences department (new proprietor Philip Almond, previous brands Burger King, Baileys and Smirnoff Ice), and will report either to Head of Creative and Digital or Head of Creative and Operations (tbc, it says).
But you won't be alone on the shop floor - apparently you'll provide "day to day line management for a rotating and flexible team of Creative Executives and Coordinators".

The words Twitter and Facebook don't appear in the ad or job spec, but I fear they may be involved. 

Not feert

Acting DG Tim Davie is reportedly on his way to face BBC Scotland staff in an Q&A session in Pacific Quay today. Today is also, probably, the last full working day to sort out something for news staff around Scotland facing compulsory redundancy. The NUJ has a national mandate to call a strike - around 70% support, on a 37.7% turnout in their recent ballot; and the branch is due to meet on Monday to discuss next steps. When first announced, this year's cuts meant 35 staff were potentially on their way out.

Meanwhile, in a gavotte with the Scottish Parliament, BBC Scotland executives have said they will attend a committee meeting on 22 January.

Users win...

BBC Chief Technology Officer John Linwood has been explaining his "journey" over the past for years at a conference of IT leaders, reported by Computing.  He's been responding to the pressure to “allow more and more” office services on employee-owned devices - giving rise to the ugly acronym BYOD: Bring Your Own Device.

“When I joined the BBC four years ago, the desktop was locked down as it is in most corporates, and you couldn’t do anything with it except run applications already on it,” said Linwood. “So journalists went out, they bought their own laptop and put Gmail and Skype on it, they forwarded their BBC email to Gmail, and suddenly you had completely unsecured, unencrypted laptops with confidential information being left on planes and trains and buses.

“It was all because we tried to be too secure,” said Linwood. “So you have to take the pragmatic line that recognises that your users will fight their way around it, so you have to find an answer.” Linwood says the BBC goes to great lengths to educate employees about the value of data - and they need to be constantly reminded that using a service like Dropbox does not involve simply “moving data from a PC to tablet or phone, but that that data is now sitting in a datacentre on the other side of the world, under the jurisdiction of another government”.

I wonder if the additional costs of training can be set against savings in hardwired computer security.

Gratitude

Tory peer Lord Bates of Langbaurgh is proposing that the Chairman of the BBC Trust should in future be elected by licence-fee payers. Election failure, if only in his own constituency, was what sent Chris Patten on the road to the Lords. As chairman of the Conservatives, he's widely credited with winning the 1992 General Election, only to lose his seat in Bath.

Spookily, Lord Bates, as plain Michael Bates, was a beneficiary of the Patten campaign in 1992, becoming MP for Langbaurgh, defeating Labour's Ashok Kumar. The constituency was abolished for the 1997 general election, when he stood in the similar seat of Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East, but lost - to Ashok Kumar.

Herding Harding

It's not clear yet what led to the parting of the ways between Times editor James Harding and Rupert Murdoch. James has had to handle the paywall, the phone-hacking fall-out, and basic circulation - down under 400,000 again, from around 670,000 when he assumed the editor's chair in December 2007. The best guess is that The Thunderer is following The Sun to seven-day operation.

If James, the youngest editor of The Times on his appointment, is on the open market, the BBC might be interested - a first in history from Cambridge, business journalism, and languages including French, Mandarin and Japanese might appeal to an organisation looking for extra bottom. He certainly has thoughts about the BBC.

Or he just might turn into a full-time Cycling Czar.

Light touch

They may not be as garish as those that surround them, but the lights on the spire of All Souls in front of Broadcasting House are a creative and heartwarming addition to the season.

Late night, Piers ?

The New York Post says new CNN boss Jeff Zucker may be thinking about moving Piers Morgan from his 9pm weekday slot, possibly to 10pm or later. Piers enters the last year of his three-year contract in January.

Year on year, there's not much improvement for Piers amongst 25-54 year-olds in his current slot.  Here's last week's figures, compared with the same week in 2011.

"See radio in the making"

Moderately successful first show in new studio for the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning. They've moved from the lower levels of Stage 6 at Television Centre to the upper floors of new Broadcasting House. I say "moderately"  because they either decided not switch on new webcams, or reckoned it might be too risky on the first show. Either way, this was the shadowy, motionless offering this morning...

Timings

There's a sort of Monday 17 December vibe hanging around publication of the Pollard findings about the Newsnight-non-Savile-broadcast. And a feeling that news of the disciplinary review around the Newsnight-broadcast-that-didn't-name-McAlpine-but-was-still-wrong could come on the same day - why prolong pain ?

Still on the to-do list: the final action point arising from the MacQuarrie report: "We will as a matter of urgency fill the current vacancy for a non-executive director of the BBC with a senior external figure with a proven track record of overseeing journalism".

Could that be Pollard himself ? Does Lord Hall really need a hack at hand ?

In the air

Odd bits of FOI responses...

BBC Future Media spent close to £35,000 decorating its offices during the Olympics, as part of "internal communications" for the "Never Miss A Moment Campaign". COO Andy Conroy explains, "As you probably know, internal communication works to increase staff engagement which in turn is consistently shown to improve a range of outcomes including productivity, customer service etc."

As well as staff already based in the States, 94 BBC employees were shipped there for coverage of the Presidential election.

And another enquiry reveals that the BBC centrally spent £1.1m on flights between the UK and the USA in the seven months April to October this year. This covers staff, guests, contributors and equipment - but doesn't include any flights that may have been booked directly and claimed back. Altogether, there were 1,026 tickets issued, at an average of £1106 each. One was first class, 51 were business class.

Tangled

According to the bit they let you read for free in The Times, Peter Rippon, stepped-aside Editor of Newsnight, told his bosses that the infamous blog of explanation contained errors the day after it was published.

It was first published just after 5pm on October 2nd, and in it, Peter attempted to explain why he took the decision not to run a story into allegations of sex abuse by Jimmy Savile. It was "corrected" on 22 October - ahead of the Panorama report into the Newsnight-story-that-wasn't. Up until today, the narrative has been that it was reporter Liz MacKean and producer Meirion Jones who emailed both Rippon and his superior Steve Mitchell about mistakes on 3rd October.

In the intervening three weeks, Lord Patten and Editorial Policy chief David Jordan relied on the the first blog to make the case for the defence of Newsnight. By 21st October, Lord Patten was trying to claim he had insisted on the corrections being made.  

Very moving

This weekend, Radio 1's Newsbeat team moves into the gleaming mothership of Broadcasting House. Not quite as many of them as there were before John Myers counted them, but a good few handfuls.

Here's a nice blog to read by Nick Wallis, who joined the team to cover gaps back at a rapidly emptying Yalding House, as teams piloted in the new studios.

Expect more final farewells this week, as the Today programme joins the World Tonight, World at One and PM at Broadcasting House. The normally sensible men and women of the domestic Radio Newsroom are so-o-o excited about the return from exile in W12, they're even having a comeback party. Have they thought of asking Dame Liz Forgan ?

Goss

Odd bits of tv news. "I Love My Country", BBC1's next hope for Saturday nights, is being hosted by Gabby Logan, not David Walliams. Gabby has also featured in a pilot for ITV1 called "Splash!", in which micro-celebrities learn to dive. Jake Humphrey has been signed to host a BBC1 daytime quiz called "Beat The Pack". The battle rounds of The Voice (series 2) return to the Fountain Studios at Wembley; the blind auditions are at MediaCityUK this month. Vernon Kay, also in "Splash!" warmed up for his last Radio 1 show this morning by spinning platters at the F1 end-of-season party with Chris Moyles. Moyles is reported to be looking at direct online broadcasting, rather than fulfilling his Radio 1 contract. Jonathan Ross is thinking the same way as his next move.

I could be a meeja insider, too...

Journalist jobs

As late as this week, five staff from the BBC Asian Network faced compulsory redundancy on December 31. Now, the BBC and NUJ have agreed that "commitments" have been met. This time the NUJ has a strike mandate in its pocket. 70.3% of those who voted (I can't find the the hard numbers) are ready to take strike action, if there are compulsory redundancies.

The spotlight now falls on BBC Scotland, where there were over 30 redundancies to resolve, and a meeting on Monday.

The last time the BBC unions called the troops to the barricades, things were different. It was over a "derisory" 1% pay offer, and the strike ballot threatened coverage of the Diamond Jubilee. Suddenly, without the results of the ballot being reported, there was a deal, and the unions "recognised very tough financial challenges".  They did, however, claim they'd got renewed commitments to avoid redundancies.

Relativities

A number of papers have noted higher salaries for a handful of BBC staff - awarded, against frozen management pay, for increased scope in their work. I'm guessing George Entwistle signed off Ben Stephenson's 20%, and Lucy Adams signed off smaller rises for HR bosses Karl Burnett and Richard Thurston. Thurston's rise was insufficient to stop his move to Sky.

High flier

That Mark Thompson, he likes San Francisco. In June this year, he flew in from London, £5,789.19 return, and managed a side trip to LA. Flying across the pond at roughly the same time was his Director of Future Media, Ralph Rivera, who claimed business at £6213.09 return and spent three nights in Dinah's Garden Hotel, Palo Alto ("Our six acres of gardens featuring koi-filled lagoons, tranquil waterfalls and art objects from the Pacific Rim will transport you to a tropical paradise").

In all, across the quarter, the departing DG had a travel itch. Flights to Sun Valley via Charles De Gaulle and Salt Lake City were booked and cancelled in July, as was a trip to San Francisco in May. But he did manage a return to Berlin at £666.55, and another to Edinburgh, at £468.37.

Last night, Mark was in San Francisco again, at the Commonwealth Club, for a talk by New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson, entitled "Deciding The News That's Fit To Print".

Eee, expenses !

BBC expenses for Q1 are out...

George Entwistle and Controller BBC3 Zai Bennett went to the LA screenings (probably others did too). Zai's flight was £1,347 (can't find George's), and six nights at the Sunset Marquis came in at £1,311.43 each.

From the Sunset Marquis website: Semi-official private hotel sanctuary for West Hollywood's A-list elite. Located in ever-glamorous West Hollywood, the Sunset Marquis is an oasis in an increasingly raucous world, a serene retreat from the uproar of the nearby Sunset Strip, a sanctuary in which to hide from vengeful former spouses, and so very, very, very much more.

Pat Younge claimed for 20 copies of the online Strengths Finder 2.0 test by Gallup, for his chums on the Vision Production Executive Board.

From their website: Decades of Gallup research uncovered 34 strengths that exist at some level within everyone. But, each person has "signature strengths," which dominate their actions and behaviours. From Achiever and Activator to Strategic and Woo, the people you lead have unique combinations of strengths that represent their individual strengths profile. Helping your people discover and develop their strengths positions them to do what they do best every day. 

How many Woos in White City now ?

Dave Brubeck RIP

Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck has died, aged 91.  His most famous single, Take Five, was recorded in 1959, but took until 1961 to reach the UK charts. Written in 5/4 time, it spent an extraordinary five weeks in the Top Ten. The follow-up single, Unsquare Dance (below), in 7/4 time, arrived in 1962, and was the 100th best selling single of a pre-Beatles year. No less than four instrumentals took top slots in that year's sales - Acker Bilk's Stranger On The Shore (2), The Shadows' Wonderful Land (3), The Tornadoes, with Joe Meek's Telstar (6), and B Bumble and The Stingers' Nut Rocker (17).

Both Brubeck singles featured in so-called "musical appreciation " sessions at my school, Prescot Grammar, under the beady eye and waiting gym shoe of music master E. Fielding Kirk, known out of his earshot as Ted. Take Five was actually written by sax player Paul Desmond (I learned that much later, and now treasure his work with Gerry Mulligan).

Unsquare Dance's tempo became even more unsteady when I found an ex-juke box copy in 1963, and centred it on the turntable by eye - in the style of a comedy potter's wheel. Until today, I didn't know that Unsquare Dance also featured a musical phrase known in America as "Shave and a haircut - two bits", and in the UK "Shave and a haircut - five bob".

Fair hearing

Whilst acting Director of BBC News Fran Unsworth may have been hoping for a week or so of calm before Newsnight disciplinaries and the Pollard report surface, books get in the way.

Broadcast reports that Gavin Esler was persuade to opine during a promotional tour for his book, Lessons From The Top, in London this week. Gavin presented the 2nd November edition of Newsnight with the report that didn't name Lord McAlpine; he apparently said he hoped “not to work with some of the people involved ever again”, adding: “I want to trust my colleagues … but I don’t know what they were thinking. There were basic, basic errors of judgement in running that programme.”

Last night's news

Congratulations to the BBC News team producing The World Tonight on Radio 4; they've safely made the move back to Broadcasting House - the first of the so-called UK "daily sequence" programmes to come from W1 on a regular basis, after 14 years in Television Centre. 

In their move to Television Centre, bi-media was initially the driving concept - so The World Tonight shared production offices with Newsnight. There was a row of low filing cabinets topped with pot plants delineating the border - but it might as well have been the Berlin Wall for all the collaboration between the two sides. I'm sure someone will let me know their current physical relationship.... 

Many more pictures on The World Tonight Facebook page.

Mind how you go

If the BBC ever builds another building, the entrance will be Hawaiian walk-through.

The new revolving doors at Broadcasting House are just too much for at least two employees, who have written to staff website Ariel and complained. This has now become national and international news. One of the complainants is known to me. In my humble opinion, if humans ranging the scales of physical capabilities from Tony Hall through Lord Patten to Alan Yentob can manage the transit, the rest should just get on with it.

In 2004, 800 staff at BBC Birmingham were issued with stickmen diagrams to show how best to progress through the new revolving doors at the Mailbox, after a female employee damaged a toe-nail.  I confidently predict there will be a easy guide to helical stairs soon, on the staircases connecting the new BBC newsroom to upper and lower floors. I hate to think what safety guidance is attached to other key dangers, such as toilet seats, filing cabinets, carpets, soup bowls, pencils etc.

Safe environment

The minutes of Mark Thompson's last BBC Executive meeting as DG have emerged. It was held on the 10th of September in Broadcasting House. Here are two poignant highlights, the first on the Quarterly Performance Report...

Overall the Board recognised that trust levels were at their highest for the BBC and it was important to be able to maintain these.

And this ending, featuring Senior Non-Executive Director Marcus Agius.

17 Any other business

17.1 As he would be stepping down shortly as Director-General and this would be his last 

Executive Board meeting, Mark Thompson said a few words.  He commented on how the 

Board, as an institution had grown and developed since it was established and how it 

would continue to do so.  He thanked colleagues for their candour during meetings, 

remarking on the quality and value of the debates at the Board which had provided a safe 

environment to talk about the important business and issues affecting the BBC.  

17.2 Marcus Agius spoke on behalf of the rest of the Board, noting members’ gratitude and 

appreciation for the way in which Mark had chaired the Board.  Marcus highlighted some 

of the key moments of Mark’s tenure as Director-General remarking on how well he had 

handled situations in what was a difficult and extremely demanding job.  In particular, 

Marcus noted that Mark was leaving the BBC in a strong position, with trust levels at 

their highest and after a great summer of sporting and national activity.

For those interested in timelines, try Stewart Purvis' blog, and note emails and letters passing through Mark Thompson's office in the days ahead of this meeting.

Inquisitor

The man-more-involved-in-running-the-BBC-than-you-think, Alan Yentob, has found time to spend as interlocutor for an HBO special with Mel Brooks. Here's a clip, with a searching Yentob question ignored.

Radio contact

Ex-BBC COO Caroline Thomson has joined Carlisle-based CN Group as a non-executive director. This gives her another foothold back in broadcasting - alongside her chairmanship of Digital UK.

The CN Group's origins lie with the first edition of the Carlisle Patriot, on the 3 June, 1815. In 1961, the group became a founder shareholder of Border TV, until its sale in the late 1990s.  But the group also invested in radio, owning the Touch Group around the Midlands until 2009 - and it still runs Citybeat in Belfast, The Bay in Morecambe, and Lakeland Radio in Kendal.

The chairman of the CN Group is Lord Inglewood, who notes in his parliamentary register of interests: "Gift of two complimentary tickets for BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Carlisle Airport, Carlisle, 14 and 15 May 2011".