Unlamented

In 1985 the BBC pulled out of plans to build a new Radio Centre, designed by Norman Foster, on the site of the Langham Hotel, opposite Broadcasting House. Instead, the new chairman, Stuart Young, sold the freehold of the hotel for an estimated £26m - and for the same money, bought the old White City site.

The BBC's Architecture and Civil Engineering department then concluded a deal with Balfour Beatty, to "design and build" an administrative headquarters as the first phase of the White City Development. Design and build meant that you just specified your requirements, and lo, the building of your dreams appeared - for a pre-agreed price. The BBC imagined something nice, with fashionable brise-soleil shading elegant cladding, in the style of early Arup buildings at Broadgate. Design and build contracts incentivise finding the cheapest way of meeting the brief. BB's engineers met the shading spec with black glass and sheer metal panels - and thus the eyeless, heartless White City 1 emerged, ready for occupation in 1990. Critic Rowan Moore once described it as "a building with all the charisma of a plastic cup out of a drinks dispenser". ACED declared the building was on cost and on time; others told a different story.

The idea was that top brass would be there; I had the pleasure of showing round John Birt when he was deputy Director General, as the building was under construction, and he opined firmly, that it was the worst office he'd ever been offered - and never worked there.

Last week, discreetly, the BBC gave notice to the outside world that White City 1 was empty, ready for use by whoever is prepared to do a deal.

Here's a truncated piece of a speech by Greg Dyke, given in 2003, when he was Director General.

And here.. is the BBC's piece de resistance, a building which is known in the BBC as Ceacescu Towers – a description reflecting its similarity to many buildings constructed in post-war communist Eastern Europe. This is the BBC headquarters in White City. This was only built a decade ago and I find it little short of disgraceful that a public body like the BBC should have commissioned such a building. And by the way, I don't blame the architects and builders for this. It was all about a brief from the client - us - which was driven by considerations of costs above all else..... 

Let me tell you a story about this building which tells you so much about so many public bodies. Inside this horrible building is a courtyard, quite a nice courtyard actually.... It had been closed since the building opened.... When I asked why was this the case I was told the magic words "health and safety"... But as I was the new Director-General and hadn't yet been worn down by years of BBC bureaucracy I decided to take it further. I asked the fairly obvious question what were the health and safety risks? Silence. I asked again. After a few months the message came back that there was no wheelchair ramp and we needed an extra fire door. That was it - a ramp and a door... So I put in the door and built a wheelchair ramp – not personally of course – and declared the courtyard open with a party for the staff working there. The excitement at the party was amazing – one group asked me could we go on the balconies now? They too had been closed for ten years. Another asked does this mean we can paint our offices a colour other than grey? Radical stuff. And then I bumped into one of the building managers and told him all these exciting things. And what did he say? He said "look what you’ve started now".

Vocative

Where stands Lord Hall on popular culture? Will BBC1 strategy shape the interviews for Director of Television - or is there a real discussion about the bigger picture ?

Internal candidates Danny Cohen and Peter Salmon both have an interest in the The Voice. This year Danny expends the second instalment of an (estimated) £22m total just to have the show on his channel. And Peter's baby, MediaCityUK plays host to the recorded blind auditions - now "enhanced" with a series of "moving" back stories of struggle.  Thus lingering shots of our contestants shuffling across the piazza; and the arrival of unlikely Salford country & western singer, Mike Ward, unemployed joiner, and cousin of Shayne Ward. Despite MediaCityUk boasting Europe's largest HD tv studio, The Voice moves back to London for the battle rounds.

The first of the series was beaten in the ratings by Ant and Dec on ITV, despite The Voice being given a decent inheritance by Dr Who.

Wandering lens

When robot cameras develop minds of their own....or perhaps someone leaned on something.

Dressing things up

The Guardian has been let in on Lord (Tony) Hall's agenda for his first official day at the helm of the BBC, on Tuesday - and it proves that things move fast. It says he plans symbolic visits to "Reithian" departments - Panorama, science, Radio 1 and the "tech ops" team. Panorama currently has a producer suspended, after it appeared an interviewee was offered future employment to contribute to an investigation. The "tech ops" visit is apparently in thanks for keeping broadcasting going in bad weather; staff will note that some technical managers kept things going during Friday's strike by BECTU and the NUJ.  One interesting side bar: this strategic walkabout can now happen without Lord Hall putting on an overcoat, as all the departments are in Broadcasting House.

The Guardian also notes that Lord Hall will meet with Alan Yentob and James Purnell. Kremlinologists like myself will be interested to see if Al is formally restored to the top table, after the Entwistle demotion.

Again, the Guardian notes that Lord Hall will do a range of media interviews. I reckon this will be fairly boring for all parties involved; it's still too early for radical statements - and, anyway, Tony's not a man to scare the horses at any stage of his tenure. I still think the first interesting interview will come on April 25th, when he faces the dangerous dogs of the Commons Culture Committee.

Former BBC presenter Robin Lustig makes a sage point in today's FT - I paraphrase rather than cut, cos the FT doesn't like that.  He says the BBC no longer has too many managers, but those that remain spend too much time in endless meetings seeking further efficiencies. In the end, he argues, this is a costly but largely pointless exercise; editors waste both hours and money debating with each other how to end duplication, instead of driving real innovation.

The fact is that these surviving managers are pretty ring-savvy about appearing to play the game, but still ending up holding onto budgets. The management style under Dyke and Thompson was to create spurious titles (cf Delivering Quality First) for these efficiency drives, and to pretend that the ideas and initiatives for change came from within the organisation, thus creating "ownership" of the cuts; uncomfortable cuts apparently then emerged from consensus - "you told us it made sense". The reality was always very different. Big decisions - like the move to Salford, and the investment in Broadcasting House - could only ever come from the top. (Historians may note that the redevelopment of Broadcasting House followed a review of BBC property strategy called the 20/20 Vision, led by one Tony Hall).

I doubt Lord Hall will swathe the changes he wants to make now in the consensual, time-consuming style of the past twenty years.  I think he'll just get on with it.

Bracketing

The Editor of the Imagine series, Alan Yentob, clearly felt last night's Beyonce Knowles-produced feature on Beyonce Knowles needed an introduction from the Imagine presenter, Alan Yentob, to explain the context. Or perhaps, it was just because Beyonce is so tantalising close to an anagram of Yentob.

Two interesting logos featured. O2 from very beginning, and BBC Scotland at the end.

Wriggle

FOI request: How much down the years did the BBC give to Jimmy Savile?

The BBC does not hold a single figure that represents the amount paid to Jimmy Savile over the course of his career. However, the BBC holds a number of contributor files for Jimmy Savile at its Written Archives Centre which contain hundreds of payment slips for his appearances, for the use of footage featuring him or for expenses occurred in the course of filming. Whilst the BBC considers that contributor files, like other programme related material, fall outside the scope of the Act, in this case the BBC is prepared to volunteer this information to you. Due to the age of the files in question, it has proved difficult to scan pages in sufficiently high quality. I therefore propose sending the information to you in hard copy form. To that end, could you please contact us with a physical address to which we can send these documents ?

Rolling news

The twelve hour strike by BBC unions has started, but the news machine rolled on - through a repeat. BBC News at 1200 was hosted by Ben Brown and Sophie Long, throwing as first headline to her paramour Tim Willcox in Cyprus, but it was a recording of the 1100 output.  I miss Gavin Grey already.

The Radio 4 schedule has dropped The World At One, PM and The World Tonight. Shelagh Fogarty appeared as usual on Five Live at midday.

Increase your competitive advantage

Congratulations to all chums in BBC news management who have recently been acquiring new skills (the sort of tosh you get on Linkedin). Today's the day!  The joint union walk-out at noon should look interesting across the Entwistle Piazza (unless management put the revolving doors into maintenance). But the on-screen look of the BBC News channel and bulletins will be more interesting.

Much of the technology for tv news is now connected in transmission by software developed in Norway by Mosart. In what must be excused as Scanda-adspeak, Mosart is "making newscast a one-man show".  Here's more of the blurb...

The idea of the Mosart was conceived in 2002 at TV 2 Norway by enthusiastic and professional news directors, producers and editors, all of whom had a vision of simplifying the many tasks of controlling the production chain of a news broadcast, to improve the channel look and feel, de-risk the operation by eliminating operational errors, and offering the opportunity to control a news channel via one operator where appropriate, thereby reducing costs.

All fine and dandy, when the one operator is fully trained and experienced. Perhaps less so when it's a boss with a hurried spell of familiarisation...

A dream by the old canal ?

The impact of the BBC's move to MediaCityUK on direct employment within Salford's boundaries has been revealed in a detailed FOI response.

In the period up to March 2012, 39 new staff with Salford addresses were recruited; 32 are still on the payroll. In addition, nine "Young Ambassadors" were given six-month contracts; two have now got permanent jobs, and a number of the others are still working on a part-time or casual basis.  34 new employees in Salford represents about 1.5% of the BBC's workforce there. Around 180 existing BBC staff already lived in Salford, and just moved buildings.

You can expect the Mail to make a meal of this, but the story of MediaCityUK is much bigger. The BBC has promised to bring a further 1,000 jobs at some date yet to be specified. ITV has moved 500 staff there over the past six months; and the new Coronation Street set is taking shape (after some hiccups) over the canal bridge. The Studios are in business. Salford University has 1500 students and staff in MediaCityUK buildings. There's a hotel, a posh new restaurant called Damson (what happened to Red House ?), and upmarket foodery Booths. The summer should see water taxis, and a few more events on the piazza - twice the size of Trafalgar Square.  The balance sheet isn't looking bad.

Cool, becoming ice cold

Alan Yentob bemused by Broadcasting House lift host Michael Buble. Spool through to 2.00.

Numeracy

I am occasionally asked about why this blog goes on and on about Piers Morgan. Two reasons: first, I don't think he's a very good interviewer, and I suspect more and more Americans are realising that. Second, he loves bragging about the size of his audience, and I have been tracking his CNN show against his preferred measure, 25-54 year olds. This week, on Monday, another new low for Piers - 72,000. For a shouting match with documentary maker John Ziegler. You don't need to watch much to get a flavour.



In the world of cable and satellite, channels love quoting the number of homes to which their output is delivered. This is quite different from audience figures - the viewer needs to select the channel to count for that. My chums at BBC World News, for example, were rightly pleased with a deal at the end of 2012, which means they now reach 25 million homes across the USA. Now they have signed up to Nielsen Ratings, and we'll soon be able to see how "Impact with Mishal Husain" shapes up against Piers.

Political

Radio 5Live Controller Jonathan Wall is making a range of schedule changes, but it looks like shuffling rather than a brand new direction.

Tony Livesey, after three years of Monday to Thursday late shows, moves to Weekend Breakfast. Phil Williams goes in the other direction, covering lates Monday to Wednesday. Stephen Nolan gets an extra late night, to add to Friday, Saturday and Sunday - he wraps round a simulcast of Question Time on Thursday nights, with the support of Jon Pienaar. This doesn't feel much like a drive to bring politics to C2DEs, but then maybe that's not the point. Where will Nolan actually BE on Thursday ? There's no sign of him dropping his Radio Ulster Friday morning show in this deal.

Pienaar's own politics show moves from 8pm Sunday to 10am Sunday. People tired of life can then switch between Andrew Marr or his cover, Nicky Campbell, Dermot Murnaghan and Andrew Neil all discussing BIG QUESTIONS and MAJOR ISSUES.  No-one DESERVES this.

There's no room in the new Sunday line-up for Double Take, the half London, half Salford show fronted by Anita Anand and Sam Walker since summer 2011; it never really found an identity. Sam goes to Sunday Breakfast, alongside Livesey. Anita's Sundays can be more relaxed, with Any Answers on Radio 4 at 2pm.

Combining Modern Science with Ancient Wisdom

"Mindfulness" in schools was an early topic on BBC Breakfast this morning. I can't offer you screengrabs of our presenters adopting the relaxation/meditation pose, but they did.

Breakfast has run features on mindfulness in January 2011, January 2012 and April 2012. 

It's a well-connected movement, and who knows, Lord Patten may have tried it in the darker moments of his past year at the BBC. The Oxford Mindfulness Centre is part of the University, of which he's Chancellor; and his wife, Lavender, Lady Patten of Barnes, is an advisor to the Centre.

Doing it by the book

800,000 of us stayed up for the first edition of The Editors.

I can sort of imagine the planning meeting.

Mr Simpson: I suppose I could do Baghdad again..

Dee Kruger (Associate Producer and Wife): But it needs to be different. Thoughtful. Erudite. 

Mr Simpson: Bread and barbecued carp, mmm

Dee: John, for God's sake, concentrate. We can't just do the usual walking schtick. What about an iPad ?

Mr Simpson: No, no, no.  What about a journal ! Brilliant. Nothing symbolises quality journalism more than a journal...

And so it came to pass that a good quarter of a six and half minute film featured our hero capturing history with pen and leather-bound paper (apparently at the expense of a seat belt in the opening sequence). Or maybe he was doing the shot list. Until the Simpson archive is opened, we'll never know.

Gong costs

At the end of December came this Freedom of Information enquiry...

Please give the cost of BBC entries for the Sony Awards in 2012 by each radio service. I want to know the amounts spent on entering these awards by Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales national and local radio, and English local radio.

Please give the amount spent by the BBC on tickets for the Sony Awards ceremony in 2012.

At the start of this month, the enquirer asked for an internal review, having only received a basic acknowledgement. And the review has said a response is being drafted urgently. At this year's prices, each entry costs the BBC £108 including VAT (not including the time the poor producer has spent getting the thing together).  I can't find the price of ceremony tickets, but three-course dinners plus coffee don't come cheap at the Grosvenor House, even if heavily sponsored, and even if the wine gets picked up on your boss/s tab.

Of course, we may find out that this information, in the view of the BBC, is held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature. This year's ceremony is on the 13th May.

Left or right ?

It's Lord Hall Day minus seven and counting, at the BBC. A week today, cameras will track him entering the Broadcasting House for his first official shift in charge. Will he duck left or right inside the glass revolving doors?  Left might suggest a trip back through the corridors of "old" Broadcasting House, where there are still some panelled offices; right would suggest he's sticking with a working life in the Glass Box of Entwistle.

Meanwhile, the phone will be ringing off the hook in office of acting comms boss, Julian Payne, as pushy programme researchers and fixers demand the "first interview".  I suspect it won't come for a while - and may not fall to John Humphrys. Or even "rising star" Eddie Mair. Lord Hall will be more interested in prepping for the Culture Select Committee, who have asked for his attendance before the end of April, where the permanently pugnacious Philip Davies MP will be waiting.

Chronometer bling

Was there a digital clock malfunction in the BBC Glass Box of News last night ?  George Alagiah did a little cuff-shooting to assure himself that it was 6.15, and thus time for the headlines. No stress.

Through the ....

The first phase of ITV Granada's move to MediaCityUK is complete, with the local news production team installed in the Orange Tower, and the new set ready for the first evening Granada Reports, with Lucy Meacock and Tony Norris.

And credit is especially due for having a go with a real view from a real window - when BBC Breakfast and North West Tonight ducked the "iconic" opportunites of Salford Quays.

Seriously

Today's Observer offers a consideration of why few women get key jobs at the top of "the arts". The piece is moved by the recent appointment of Lord Hall to the BBC, and Alex Beard to succeed him at the Royal Opera House. Novelist Sarah Dunant says there was a false dawn of hope for feminists in the 1990s, and that on the whole, "men are still at the cultural controls." And she points to particularly to Alan Yentob and Melvyn Bragg, still leading cultural commentators and powerbrokers within the BBC and Sky Television; "Now I am not saying they are not good at it, but would a woman be able to do the same for so long?"

Here are recent pictures of our artistic oligarchs out and about...

Drawn out

It's drawing to a close, thank heavens, at Television Centre. Studio boss Anna Mallett revealed yesterday that there's still a Channel 4 daytime show being recorded, and listed the temporary new homes of some old favourites. Strictly Come Dancing, for example, is moving to the George Lucas Stage at Elstree - 1435m2 compared with the 995m2 of Television Centre 1.

I didn't sit through all of the BBC4 nostalgia fest, but thought that Danny Baker and Noel Edmonds expressed clearly the advantages of having talent, production and commissioning power rubbing up against each other in the same building. Attenborough and Grade talked wistfully of the days when they were old-time impresarios, giving the greenlight to series in corridor conversations. Sadly, that way of working went much longer ago than last night - dismantled by Birt. Intellectually, once even the smallest indie quotient was granted, the relationship between controllers and talent had to move onto a formal and much more boring business basis.

I'm told it was a good job there were fewer live cameras around for the staff party on Thursday.

Inspirational

The world of technology is a tangled web, where brand success matters. Yesterday the BBC News website offered a story headlined "Apple brand less 'inspiring', survey says". The piece went on "Smartphone rival Samsung is now seen as equally "inspiring" in the US, says the survey by consultancy Added Value (AV)."

This story has now been updated to reflect that AV is part of Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP, whose clients include, amongst many others, Samsung.

Not telling you

The BBC line on rejecting FOI inquiries as "out of scope" seems to be getting harder by the day..

Q: ‘The Radio Two service licence requires the station to broadcast over 1,100 hours of specialist music programmes each year. Please would you set out for me the programmes in week commencing 18 February 2013 that Radio Two regards as counting towards this target.’

A: The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you and will not be doing so on this occasion.

I wonder if the BBC Trust, who set the terms of these service licences after public consultation, think this should be a secret thing...   Maybe inquirer Eddie Cole should write to them.

Newz

Congratulations to Kiwi Andrew Roy, who's been appointed to run foreign news coverage at the BBC. The annnouncement of his appointment was made through the normal channels, as opposed to his previous advancement. He replaces Jon Williams, whose last day is today before heading off to work for ABC in the States.

Will Andrew get the dubious on-screen honour of reporting during the Maundy Thursday strike? Jon got the duty of covering the strike during the last stoppage in February.

Dodgy forecasts

BBC Weather Twitter account shtick: Never get caught out by the weather! Official BBC Weather account, run by presenters+producers. Forecasts, videos & behind-the-scenes chat.

Something has caught them out; hackers at work, starting at 6am, and still at it, close to 2pm.

Scandal: Edinburgh storm warning station decommissioned after maintenance fund diverted to arming Syrian opposition
— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) March 21, 2013

1430 update: and they're still at it - with BBC Arabic Online and BBC Radio Ulster

@bbcarabiconline & @bbcweather & @bbcradioulster was hacked by Syrian Electronic Army #SEA #Syria
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA) March 21, 2013

Different tack

An entertaining innovation from the joint BBC unions for the next walk-out - a half-day, starting at noon on Thursday 28th March. This will discombobulate management, for whom Thursday has always been the new Friday - especially when Friday is a bank holiday. I can hear a few flight, villa and cottage cancellations being made. And, in finance, many more split shifts will need to be calculated when docking pay.

Half right

"Between January 1st 2005 and 28th February 2013, the BBC received a total of 11,371 Freedom of Information Act requests. Of these 11,371 requests, the BBC considered 49% to be out of scope of the Act, i.e. the information requested was considered to be held for the purposes of Journalism, Art or Literature".

And it makes journalism, art and literature much more Serious and Sensible if you give them capital letters....

"However, as part of the BBC’s programme for openness and transparency, the BBC often volunteers information when it considers the information requested to fal [sic]outside the scope of the Act".

On publication of direct Freedom of Information inquiries, the BBC has made a commitment, adopting a  model scheme for public bodies. It says the BBC will proactively publish or otherwise make available as a matter of routine, information in line with the statements contained within the scheme. Sadly, by it's own admission, that proactive publication has been in abeyance for over a year, apparently waiting for a new website.


 

Finger trouble

The BBC will know tomorrow what dates they'll need to get the managers trained by. The latest strike ballot, this time by the joint unions, has come out in favour of downing tools. The NUJ vote was 61.2% for strike action and 79.9% for action short of a strike; just over 41% of the eligible membership voted. BECTU members voted by a majority of 56 per cent for strike action; 81 per cent of members voting in favour of action short of striking. 39% of the membership voted.

The last walkout, just by NUJ members, was on the 18th of February. Since then, BBC News has moved completely into new production offices and studios at Broadcasting House - with new technology. And this time, BECTU, who provide many of the operating and technical roles, will be out as well. The NUJ and BECTU together represent close to 7,000 of a BBC staff of around 20,000. Time for some managers to put a shift in on the new buttons, bells and whistles...

Criminal

It's unfortunate for Piers Morgan that his mini-makeover at CNN happens to coincide with the Jodi Arias trial, which sister channel Headline News is monstering. Piers returned a new 2013 low audience (25-54 year-olds) on Monday, at 78,000, while Dr Drew Pinsky on HLN attracted 274,000. Here's a transcript of the HLN show.

Piers was also ploughing a crime furrow - with guest Patricia Cornwall.

Bash

I went to a marvellous party last night - a leaving do that shouldn't have been a leaving do. I'm not going to go on about it, but I met people from right across the BBC, and was reminded that they're really good and sensible people, doing a very good job. This blog may occasionally cheek them, but it's meant to be fun, and perhaps, occasionally, to point out daftness in the hope of improvement.  I hope there'll be many more parties - for much better reasons.

What a day !

In the great days of dancing to popular music recordings, Top Rank Suites, like all iconic performing institutions, would save their best lighting effects until the end of the evening.

So it was for the news on BBC1, on its first day of HD output from Broadcasting House. At 10, blue lights played on the enormous pillars of the two storey news-space, and the giant lampshade of NEWS pulsed, as the camera swooped down to Disco Huw at the wheels of steel newsdesk.  I suspect the blue light caused a little flaring on tvs with less than 1080 lines, but then, that's progress - isn't it ?

Threads

Some loose ends were tidied up yesterday, but there are more appearing, dangling from the ends of the BBC sofa covers.

The move to new Broadcasting House was completed. Helen Boaden finished her nine-year stint as Director of News; but we also were told not to expect a permanent replacement to emerge until late April/early May. At the end of last week, The Guardian reported that Roger Mosey had not applied for either of the currently vacant directorships - News or Vision. At 55, this may not mean a lack of ambition on Roger's part. In 1997, he emerged as Controller Radio 5 Live (from Today), much to the shock of the inside tip, and without the knowledge of any of the other candidates.  Now, it's doubtful he's retreating to rose-gardening in Richmond, or to the cross-bench vacancy left by Lord Hall. The Pollard annexes show he was making big BBC decisions after the Olympics - and Lord Hall's longer term mission is to change not just the sofa covers, but get a new sofa shape altogether for BBC management. Who knows, there may be a new Mosey-sized slot on that sofa, with, perhaps, the Directors of Vision and News on footstools and pouffes .....

Anne McElvoy yesterday tweeted thus...

This will upset a few. For Vision, Peter Salmon, of Twickenham and Salford (promised by the end of March) will give Mr Cohen a run. Jay Hunt may not want to be the last one left of her C4 team to turn out the lights (George Dixon is off to RTE) and has served longer than Mark Thompson at Boot Camp. In News, Peter Horrocks will not want to be left off lists.

And, above all, Lord Hall will want to demonstrate that he can bring in new blood.

• Early this morning, BBC Worldwide announced the sale of Lonely Planet operations, to a Nashville-based media group, NC2 Media. Sale price £51.5m (in stages). BBC acquisition price £130.2m (in stages). Will John Smith have left with a bonus for 2012/3 ?

Higher and higher

Have no fear, meine kleinen Lieblinge. The new BBC News studio is not on hydraulic jacks. Mr Huw Edwards is broadcasting from a subterranean studio at 5pm on the News Channel, with the newsroom backdrop added on a screen rather than through glass. Part of the unfailing contract of honesty with the viewer.  Back to reality at 6pm, I'm sure...

Well defined

Well, it'll never look tidier. The first edition of a BBC1 bulletin in HD, from the newsroom studio at Broadcasting House, launched safely enough at 1300 today.

Not yet...

Changing the name and style doesn't seem to have brought a dramatic turn-around for Piers Morgan at CNN. It's no longer Piers Morgan Tonight, but Piers Morgan Live - and the format attracted his second lowest audience of the year so far on Thursday. 89,000 25 to 54 year-olds stayed with the network to hear Piers pick over the Steubenville rape case with former porn star Traci Lords. 94,000 turned off the channel.

Reality tv news

In 1974 I spent three months in the BBC tv newsroom at Television Centre, as a trainee sub, largely on bulletins on BBC2. There was an air of spurious dynamism about tv news then - most of the pictures were still on film; the graphics were Letraset on cardboard, with "pull-out" animation; and the presenters were mainly former radio "a-nine-cers". The Editors wished to demonstrate to BBC1 audiences their mighty resources, and decided bulletins would come from the newsroom, rather than a studio. Two robotic cameras were set up, lights installed, and a floor manager attempted to keep the motley crue of subs from sudden, distracting actions, such as standing up. Eric Morecambe described it as "news from a betting shop". Eventually, through colour separation overlay, Richard Baker et al were moved back to a studio - and only the opening and closing shot offered the panorama of empty desks and Adlers, with a bank of eight, yes eight, tv monitors in the far distance. In fact, all of  us subs (as many as 10 at that time of night) were shepherded out of sight by the floor manager - no sneaking back for your coat or fags. The one person trusted to remain in vision was the lead typist - usually head down copy-typing the duty editor's latest novel.

During the bulletin, one of the cameras swung round to focus on venetian blinds in the newsgathering corner (the newsgatherers were long gone). One day the blinds had been left awry, and were then photographed to offer an unchanging background. The newsroom camera fell into disuse, apart from the Saturday news summary during Grandstand, where the presenter would perch jauntily on the newsdesk for the full drama of a two minute written bulletin.

Tomorrow, close to 39 years later, BBC1 and BBC News Channel bulletins and daytime output move to a studio with one big glass wall, overlooking the new "World's Newsroom" on the lower ground floor of Broadcasting House. Already, staff are being asked to keep out of a red-lined area; not to gather in groups; and not to wear reflective jackets etc. Already, correspondents to Newswatch are taking the Eric Morecambe line. Already, a giant 1960s Habitat style lampshade of NEWS has been erected over the heads of subs, to add visual interest. Already, there are more tv lights nailed to the ceiling than imagined in Studio 54's New York hey-day.

Will the BBC hold its nerve and stick with the look ? Or bottle it, and go back to imaginary graphic newsrooms dreamed up on laser discs by Italian graphic artists ?

Stand by for a heated and misdirected debate. The real discussion should be on the quality, reliability and insight of the content. And that is where there IS room for improvement.

Kentish

BBC Studios have lost, at least temporarily, Later with Jools Holland. As Television Centre gets ready for refurbishment, the next run of nine shows will come from Maidstone. Jools and the team seem to have rejected Elstree and Pinewood as alternatives.

Still, there'll be less pressure from BBC suits for tickets.

Centre forward

Everton fans (there remain a few of us) will be delighted to learn that the new Pope is a fan of San Lorenzo FC, Buenos Aires, where Denis Stracqualursi now wears the Number 9 shirt.

Plumes

Yes, Broadcasting House was seen making white smoke yesterday morning - testing the standby generators before the arrival of the power-hungry News Channel and BBC1 Bulletins next week. There are also hints of a revised graphics look in the weather bulletins today on the News Channel.

Meanwhile...

Early adopter, early loser

Crikey. The aging process for me is being highlighted not by younger policemen, but by Google features I have known, loved and lost. Google Reader will bite the dust in July this year, having started in 2005. iGoogle, my rickety front page, is also on the way out. I turn to both straight after reading emails, in my daily hunt for media morsels and other tosh to write about - and it's a rhythm I'm reluctant to change.

We're told there'll be alternatives from others to replicate the service - but that's rather like buying a fibre-glass replica of a Morris Traveller, rather than cherishing the rust of the real thing. My instinct now is to tweet every post, in the hunt for hits, but if the world does that as well as me, Twitter timelines are going to be pretty cluttered...

Two Bobs

It's not always possible to maintain that welcoming look. Pictured, Radio 2 Controller Bob Shennan, at the 2013 Country Music Association Marketing Summit and Songwriter Series. Not in Nashville, but Disneyland Paris. Disney are the CMA's media partner. Let's hope Bob cheered up over dinner in the Disney Village, and the evening entertainment in Billy Bob's Country & Western Saloon by Kristian Bush of Sugarland, Brett James, Dallas Davidson and Bob Di Piero.

Snip

The builders are just buffing up the five luxury flats that have been created at 30-34 Langham Street, facing both Great Portland Street - and Dr Evil's Volcano News Lair aka new Broadcasting House. Prices range from £3.1m to £4.5m for a 105 year lease. From the "Sky" (cheeky so-and-so's) Lounge atop the Penthouse, you can see the Post Office Tower - and swivel left to catch BBC staff having a sneaky roll-up on the Entwistle Piazza. This, according to the blurb, is "an atmospheric location" !

Cluster

The second round list of potential local tv stations has been issued by Ofcom, and retired journos will be searching the list to see if they can get a gig bolstering an application.

There are some oddities - London/Derry is on offer, with perhaps a population of around 100,000. As is Limavady, just 16 miles away, and a population of around 15,000.

A-team

Some old favourites have re-appeared as presenters on the BBC News Channel this week, covering shifts as the A-team get to practice in their new studio at Broadcasting House, ahead of the on-air move next Monday. Here are some of them prowling round the set-that-looks-like-a-circle but is really in a rectangular box...

Grrrrr

Blogging will be light today. We left Lewes at 6pm, heading for London, and ended up at 10pm in a grim Brighton sea-front hotel. The BBC local radio service was all but useless. This morning, Sky News was on the case, but Breakfast woeful. There IS a story to tell, and it's not just about lack of grit - it's about lack of leadership and information.

Let's see if someone can do some decent analysis by 6pm. I might be home then...

Right again

Congratulations to Ceri Thomas, today anointed Head of News Programmes at the BBC - representing some of the role vacated by the retiring Stephen Mitchell. Helen Boaden seems to have lead the selection procedure - let's hope Ceri's new boss in the role of Director of News, whoever that may be, likes him as much.

As we predicted, there's now a contest to be the next editor of Today. Jasmin Buttar is likely to continue as Acting Editor; will the opportunity to be the first female Today editor since Jenny Abramsky sway her next move - or will she seek a return to alma mater Newsnight ?

Pigs, The Queen and Cars

The Herald, in Scotland, has once again been given privileged information about BBC Alba's audience figures, officially shared only annually with competitors and licence-fee payers.

The station told the Herald it averages around 500,000 viewers a week, with higher numbers when popular football matches are broadcast, such as the Brechin v Rangers game last July. Last year, the channel scored 3.4 million viewings on BBC iPlayer, up from two million the year before - here top shows included, yes, football, but also Peppa Pig in Gaelic, the Queen's Jubilee message and BBC Alba's car show Air An Rathad.

Now apparently, the channel wants to invest some of its £14m annual budget in drama co-productions, arguing that, based on the success of The Killing and Borgen, there's an audience for subtitled tv thrillers.

• And, as if by magic, BBC4 has announced the purchase of two new thrillers - from Sweden and Italy. Arne Dahl, based on novels by Jan Arnald, and Inspector Da Luca, from stories by Carlo Lucarelli, set in the time of Mussolini. 

McCrae's Own

Paxo IS working on the Great War: at the end of last week he was spotted near Tynecastle stadium, home of Heart of Midlothian, for interviews about "McCrae's Own".

In 1914, Sir George McCrae, a hatter by profession, and former MP for East Edinburgh, secured permission to raise a new battalion.  He announced he'd find enough men ‘within seven days’. It sounded unlikely – until Wednesday 25 November, when eleven professional footballers employed by Hearts enlisted. Hearts were leaders of the Scottish League, so the news made headlines. After this, it took McCrae only six days to raise his full complement of 1347 officers and men. Boosted by professionals from Raith Rovers and Falkirk, his volunteers included numerous local sportsmen, hundreds of Hearts ticket-holders and supporters, along with players and followers of many other clubs, including an estimated 150 supporters of Hearts’ great city rivals, Hibernian.

If you can't wait for Jeremy's version, the story of their war is here.

Seat in first class ?

I'm not sure who Simon Heffer talks to at Broadcasting House, but he says some are tipping Michael Portillo to be the next Chairman of the BBC. Age does not always add authority, but Michael is 59, and Lord Hall, incoming DG, has just celebrated his 62nd birthday. Michael ran a slightly bigger budget as Defence Secretary up to 1997 than Lord Hall, either at the BBC or the Royal Opera House.

More interesting would be the income choice; do the Railway Journeys (provided there's still some mileage in them) and jousting with Andrew Neil add up to more than the current Chairman's stipend of £110,000 p.a. ?

Nights without Jezzer

Another Paxman-free week coming up on Newsnight. Wark, Wark, Esler, Esler and Flanders. Try setting that to music...

Große Geister

The conference that Caroline Thomson went to, after she had formally left the BBC, was a Google Zeitgeist Partners forum, invitation-only, at the Montelucia Resort and Spa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona. Spring room rates start at $269, but I doubt Google paid that much. The theme was "The World Around Us". Caroline doesn't appear to have been a speaker; M C Hammer is one other name I've come across as a delegate. Here are highlights of the event.

Clearly, big names in the States. Caroline must have missed out on the Zeitgeist event in Herefordshire, in May 2012, where speakers included Bill Clinton, George Papandreou, Sir Martin Sorrell, Lily Cole, Annie Lennox, Jon Snow, Sir Steve Redgrave, Kirsty Wark, Clare Balding and Paul Mason.

In house

There are few promotions where the most important task is finding your replacement. But I'm hearing the hunt for a new editor for Today is about to begin.....

More help ?

For completists, Mayday on BBC1 ended its five night run at 9pm with a slight surge, to an average of 4.64 million (19.9% share). Previous episodes scored, in order, 6.23m; 4.30m; 4.32m; 4.38m.

But will there be a Mayday 2 for production team Kudos? There were enough loose ends left, and tons of tree shots that can be re-used, to reduce costs and disturb Dorking less...

Topical

Great news, says Piers. Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN is being renamed Piers Morgan Live from Monday - and will run Monday to Thursday.

Most people think CNN is live. Piers' pre-records have allowed him sometimes to get better guests, and sometimes to build up compilation shows, winning him time off. Pre-recorded shows, however, cost more money in production costs than live; and one presumes pinning Piers down to Mon-Thurs gives him permanent long weekends. His Friday show is usually the weakest in audience figures, and there's evidence that Piers does better on hot topics of the day, rather than with micro-celebs on promotional tours. We'll see.

Circus

Congratulations to The Independent for work on the background to a little FOI snippet we found last week. It's the Socrates project at BBC Monitoring in Caversham, which turns out to be a contract between the BBC and Autonomy. It looks like a failed £8.3m project, and we now need to know who paid what to whom in "settlement".

Mention should also be made in (coded) despatches, to the original inquirers and commenters, including Oliver Lacon, Connie Sachs and Tufty Thesinger.

Adding up time

The BBC thinks we're not entitled to discover the cost of the Pollard Review under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, but, most generously, they're going to published them anyway - in two months' time.

We consider that the Pollard Review, being directed to the maintenance and enhancement of the standards and quality of the BBC’s journalism, and materials related to it are held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature and therefore outside the scope of the Act. Nevertheless, on this occasion, the BBC has now published the appendices and other material relating to the inquiry, and details of the associated costs will also be published in due course.

Students of FOI responses will have noticed a much tougher line taken recently by the BBC on information "held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature". When they resume their publication online (how long does it take to build a website) we can perhaps see the trend.

Cross border

The BBC's "go-to" investigations guy, Ken MacQuarrie, had an exhausting three months, according to the latest release of expenses and travel claims. The Controller of BBC Scotland, asked by DG-at-the-time George Entwistle to investigate the Newsnight/Savile/Not-McAlpine mess, claimed £4,800 on travel to and from London, excluding taxis, but including hotels. Indefatigable Ken also found time for work visits to Berlin and Vienna. BBC Scotland is well managed indeed to do without his presence for so long. And, even at £4.8k, the costs pale into insignificance compared with those yet to be reported for Pollard. It's not clear whether this period also included Ken's investigation into whistleblowing in BBC Studios and Post-Production, at the behest of John Smith, currently figuring in an employment tribunal in London.

• The Guardian's apparent surprise that some BBC execs had hospitality to the Olympics is odd. Supremo Roger Mosey had a good, clear, public stance on the position well before the event. Nonetheless, looking at the wider picture, should the BBC/licence fee cough for a taxi to or from an event, or a hotel afterwards, if you been invited as a guest ?

By the time I get to....

The latest figures for BBC suits' expenses are out. I'm puzzled by those for Caroline Thomson, who left the BBC "at the end of September", having failed to convince Lord Patten and others that she'd be a better DG than George Entwistle. She received a reasonable sum in lieu of notice - but was she still on BBC business when she flew to Phoenix from Heathrow on the 13th October, at a return cost of  £4,190.89? 

Riposte

The BBC - which has put its FOI publication promises into abeyance for over a year, apparently waiting for a new website - has released some stats on the number of requests it gets.

In 2010, there were 1743; in 2011, 1610, and in 2012, the BBC's "annus horribilis", a surprisingly low 999. This year there's been a spurt, with the first two months clocking up 339, with plenty about Archers' messageboard closure, James Purnell's appointment, and some regulars about the Cornish language. 

In other disclosures, the BBC has revealed that four people qualified as lawyers form part of the BBC FOI/Data Protection Scheme team. They are presumably helping with niggardly answers to questions cf this recent exchange.... 

Q :  The total number of lawyers employed by the BBC in all departments on the last day of each month in the year 2012 ?

A:  Lawyers can be employed in a large number of departments across the BBC, and do not all sit in the BBC Legal Department. Furthermore, it is quite possible for a Lawyer not to have the word ‘Lawyer’ in their job title (as is the case of the four Lawyers currently working in the Information Policy & Compliance Team). I therefore estimate that to deal with your request would take more than two and a half days; under section 12 of the Act, we are allowed to refuse to handle the request if it would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit has been set by the Regulations (SI 2004/3244) as being £450 (equivalent to two and a half days work, at an hourly rate of £25). 

Result

Credit where due: a rugged 4.32m viewers held on to the remote control last night, to stick with BBC1 how- many-dunnit crime serial, Mayday. That's actually slight increase on Monday's figure. And last night, Mayday started just as Nani was startled by the laws of football, and Sir Alex Ferguson rose leisurely from his Old Trafford throne for a masterclass in elder-statesman-of-the-game finger-jabbing. Drama and/or crime which brought ITV an average audience of 9m, with 9.8m average for the game proper, peaking at 10.7m.

Bowels

Hep hacks at the BBC Broadcasting House are swapping underground queues for microwaved potatoes for New York-style sandwiches served in an underground toilet. Former public conveniences in Foley Street W1 have been converted to "The Attendant" coffee bar and deli. They opened two weeks ago - and have picked up coverage from trendy websites around the world - and The Sun. 

The refurbishment apparently cost £100,000; I reckon the hardest bit was scraping layers of rust and paint from the iron cage at ground level. Not that I watched the bloke trying to do it, from the comfort of the Crown and Sceptre - much.

Help me

Seth

So, ITV launched Broadchurch last night (made by mega-indie Kudos) against the second episode of BBC1's Mayday (made by mega-indie Kudos). This triumph of extending whodunnit choice ended in a win for ITV, with 6.8m viewers, against the BBC's 4.3m (down almost 2m on Sunday's opener).

Tonight, ITV has the match "the world will stop to watch" (c J Mourinho), and with live action still running till close to 9.30pm, don't expect a resurgence for Mayday Episode 3.

Oddities

Despite the lovely weather in London, there's a grim mood in old Broadcasting House. Jane Garvey is standing by for Women's Hour..

Bad news: mouse spotted in @bbcwomanshour office. Good: it was reading Simone de Beauvoir
— Jane Garvey (@janegarvey1) March 5, 2013

Susan Rae is reading the news on Radio 3

The cleaner in this office seems to have wiped down all the desks with a rag steeped in cat pee. That can't be right, surely
— Susan Rae (@Susan_Rae1) March 5, 2013

Perhaps it's a mouse-repellent. Meanwhile, in Salford, as Jose Mourinho says "The world will stop to watch" when Real Madrid play Manchester United, Radio 5 Live plans to follow the game with the launch of a regular feature on having a baby.

It's @bbc5live #bumpclub launch day! Like nothing we've done before. Ft @edibow @shappikhorsandi @beverleyturner + @danny_robins. Exciting.
— Will Cooper (@willcooper) March 5, 2013

Fans taking the arduous car journey home from Old Trafford will be delighted. Next year, Richard Bacon on Mondays will be replaced by a toddlers' club. Peter Allen will host a homework slot. Sports Report will run a  regular "Mind yer car, sir ?" feature.

Bowl

The BBC unions are lodging a pay claim of inflation plus 3% - settlement, or more normally, imposition of the annual pay deal usually comes in August.  The NUJ, BECTU and Unite want the rise for all staff in pay grades 2 to 11, and the same across the board increase for all allowances and acting payments.

NUJ calculations say that BBC staff have suffered a 15 per cent pay cut over the past ten years, if you take inflation into account.  Average salaries at the BBC - last reported in April 2012 - are £37,100 for women, and £41,800 for men. Here's a site to make more comparisons...

Radio strategy

For aficionados of the commercial radio market in the UK, this is very well written, particularly the line "We must make sure that the North of England gets Toby Anstis".  Found via RadioGoss.

Instant skyline

The Government has approved - or, rather, Eric Pickles has nodded through - the proposed Liverpool Waters development. Individual buildings within the scheme can now just go one by one to the city council for final planning approval. And that's my problem. A little like MediaCityUK, this Peel scheme attempts to look as if it might have grown organically, by conglomerating buildings of slightly different styles. This trick didn't work at Poundbury, and doesn't work along the Liverpool waterfront. Oh, for the unifying stamp of a single architect with a vision, not jobbing practices colouring in boxes in a masterplan that suits a developer rather than a city, without much concern as to how the neighbouring boxes are being finished...

Maybe

Had enough of Dorking yet ? It's the setting for whodunnit Mayday - stripped across BBC1 at 9pm from Sunday to Thursday this week. This is either bold, risk-taking scheduling; or getting something out of the way before the end of the financial year; or a mixture of the two.  

It started with a healthy average audience of 6.2m, benefitting from Call The Midwife, which had 9.2m. Normally on a Monday, we'd see Panorama at 8.30pm (ratings for last show 2.1m) but, ah-hem, the shining sword of journalism has been sheathed tonight, and we get the 1,000th edition of  A Question of Sport. Someone wants this to work....

Framing up

Jittery times at Broadcasting House. Lord Hall has left them to it, for a trip to Rio and a restorative break, and fun factory staff are scouring the horizons for clues as to who will enter the lists to tilt at the vacant Baronies of Television and News, which close at the end of this week.

For News, The Independent this morning offers James Harding, the youngest ex-editor of The Times (Trinity, Cambridge); Peter Horrocks (Director of Global News at the BBC)(Christ's, Cambridge) and Nick Pollard (Birkenhead News).

For Television, the presumed list is acting Baron Roger Mosey (Wadham, Oxford), Danny Cohen of BBC1 (Lady Margaret, Oxford) and King of the North, Peter Salmon (Warwick).

These lists are by no means exclusive, and clearly deficient in gender balance.

At this time, we should also take note of those who are making what might be deemed positioning appearances. Peter Barron, ex Newsnight and now face of Google east of the USA (Manchester University) has been spotted in streets around BH, and also offered his thoughts on The Future of News recently at a lecture at Aston University.  Peter was billed as "a pioneer of online journalism".

Tomorrow, Channel 4's Chief Creative Officer, Jay Hunt (St John's, Cambridge), will address the Oxford Media Society (tickets a snip at £2).

• Will the BBC have to build a special refrigerated wardrobe for ermine? Lord Hall of Birkenhead, (Keble, Oxford), Lord Patten of Barnes (Balliol) and Lord Bragg of Wigton (Wadham, Oxford) are to be joined by a new peer - Michael Berkeley, presenter of Radio 3's Private Passions (Royal Academy of Music). 

Monotheism

Festival season beckons. I wonder if there are many two-year courses at New York's School of Visual Arts. Last year, their inaugural SVA/BBC Design Film Festival featured an edition of the BBC's Imagine, on books (pres: A Yentob)  followed by a half-hour interview with Alan Yentob. This year, students will be enlightened by the 1975 BBC documentary on David Bowie, "Cracked Actor" (prod: A Yentob) plus two Q&A sessions with Mr Yentob, totalling 45 minutes.

Vamos dançar

Originally Lord Hall was expected to start his tenure as DG of the BBC in "early March". It's been delayed to April 2 to give him a holiday - but the new timing has also enabled him to fly to Rio, for three gala performances at the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, featuring principal dancers from the Royal Ballet.

Here's Tone in warm weather gear with opposite number Carla Camurati, marking a partnership between the two cultural establishments.

Moaner

I don't really wish to make Piers Morgan any more edgy than he already is before the North London derby match tomorrow - but Thursday's edition of his CNN chat show returned a new low for 2013 - just 87,000 viewers aged 25 to 54. It was a rag bag of items: former GE CEO Jack Welch on Yahoo telling workers to get back into the office; a discussion on the next Pope; and another on the Jodi Arias trial.

Piers returned the lowest 9pm figures across the major cable news channels. 69,000 switched off or over at the end of Anderson Cooper's 8pm show; 35,000 returned to CNN at 10pm when Piers had finished.

Friday's figures will be less interesting: Dr Mehmet Oz filled in, presumably to allow Piers home leave for the big one.

Bullet points

Piers Morgan defending his CNN audience figures is a bit like a Conservative welcoming the Eastleigh result as a victory for the Coalition. His February on February figures are down, but not by as much as other CNN shows, and not by as much as other cable news hosts at 9pm'

One furrow that seems particularly unproductive for the ploughman is his campaign against assault rifles; on Wednesday, he "debated" with right-to-bear-arms supporter John Lott, and only 93,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 stayed with the show. Mr Zucker may decide this one has run its course.

Cutting your cloth

It looks like the BBC's Digital Media Initiative, aka "Don't Mention It", is still struggling. A letter to internal house mag Ariel says using the front end of the system, called Fabric, to find archive film for programmes is slower than all previous systems. "Research that would have taken an hour now takes four. With the licence-fee-freeze squeezing budgets and production schedules tighter and tighter, that's time I don't have."

When last looked at by the National Audit Office, the economic forecasts were not good; full implementation, expected by 2017, was going to cost £134m, against original estimates of £82m, producing benefits of £95m. Minutes of the Executive Board in the past year tiptoe round sorting things out, and promise a new action plan. I understand the project is now being directed from Salford, where it had been hoped that Fabric would mean "new ways of working", rather than "new workrounds".

Which of the new team will field this hot potato - Anne Bulford (Technology and Money) or James Purnell (Digital) ?