Monday, April 29, 2013

Well documented

It's always interesting to see an interim appointment at the BBC - sometimes the temp gets the full-time gig (George Entwistle, first acting and then appointed Director of BBC Vision) and sometimes not (Roger Mosey, acting and, from May 7, standing down as Director of BBC Vision to a post as yet unspecified).

Charlotte Moore has been elevated to interim Controller of BBC1, from interim Controller of BBC Daytime (where she has been minding the shop between the stuttering departure of Liam Keelan in February, and the re-arrival of Damian Kavanagh, back from Channel 4). Her speciality, however, is making and commissioning documentaries.

Charlotte has a history degree from Bristol University, and is in her mid-forties. In her potted BBC biog, it says she began her tv career "travelling to remote corners of the world to make films about cannibals, disappearing tribes and stolen art". Elsewhere she explained "I speak Indonesian and met tribes who said they'd eaten human beings". I can't track down any online credits until she appears as producer/director of a six part series about Lagos Airport, put out by Channel 4 in 1999, under the executive eyes of Jeremy Mills. Then, with Emma Hindley as fellow producer/director, there came another six-parter, a year in the making, Living With Cancer, winning a BAFTA in 2002, and a bio-pic of Winston Churchill, presented by Mo Mowlam.

Charlotte then moved to Scottish indie ICW, where she was responsible for Stephen Fry's Secret Life of The Manic Depressive, and the lesser-known Studs From Suburbia for Channel 4, before returning to the BBC as a commissioner in 2006.

"Documentary" now is a broad term, and apparently includes "The Constructed Documentary"; under this banner, Charlotte has brought us various Choirs, with Gareth Malone, and three series of The Great British Bake-Off. (I'm surprised they don't try to class The Voice as a doco...). Other unsung items she has lighted upon include "Baby-faced Bodybuilders" for BBC3.  Programmes co-commissioned with Danny Cohen include Britain's Biggest Hoarders, Meet The Izzards. For BBC2, she did a series on Midwives - which never hurted anyone with ambition to improve....

Watch Charlotte at work here.


Yum

Deep gastro-joy for BBC executives and commissioners seeking a lunchtime break from Glare of The Orange Globes of Broadcasting House: three chefs with pedigrees in the Arbutus/Wild Honey group are opening a new eatery in Great Portland Street this summer.

It's likely to be called Picture, though the trio - Alan Christie, Tom Slegg and Colin Kelly - only get keys to the space this week, and there's many a slip...

Downsizing

The BBC is having some trouble with hearts and minds these days. Despite some years of preparing the (intellectual) ground, the case for the move out of Television Centre is being picked at by combative former technical staff and talent alike. It started with the BBC's own "farewell" programmes, and stars lamenting the old days, when they could get a new series commissioned in a toilet break; and now continues over the issue of only retaining 3 of the 8 major tv studios in the redevelopment of the site.

Let's review some of the arguments. The old days of commissioners sitting alongside actual programme-making every day are long gone. More and more BBC shows are made by indies, in studios of their choosing. More and more BBC shows are made in the Drama Village in Cardiff. I'll bet my pants Lord Hall likes classic costume drama - so there'll be more and more location work. There's a major BBC contract committing to use of the tv studios at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays. One day, maybe, Pacific Quay studios in Glasgow will work at capacity - the BBC will want to look busy in the run-up to the independence vote. The One Show, which disdained Television Centre for a converted office in White City, is moving to Broadcasting House. In Lord Hall's in-tray is a proposal to send a further 1,000 staff to Salford; and James Purnell has been given the task of finding something to do with the half-empty BBC offices and production space at the Mailbox in Birmingham. The new commissioners are in the "Sanderson Suite" on the 6th floor of Broadcasting House. Even Alan Yentob is parking his Brompton in the building.

Is the BBC retaining the right number of studios ? Who knows, but somebody has done calculations which will have been based on forecast demand, signed off by people at the top of BBC Vision - not only that the BBC can cope in the long-term, but during the three years of redevelopment.  There will be no black screens. Maybe studios 4 to 8 were getting work up to the end - but quite a lot of that was for shows for other networks - Deal or No Deal, Piers Morgan's Life Stories, Eight out of Ten Cats, The Jonathan Ross Show and more.

Some of the campaigners claim that the licence-fee paying public "owns" Studios 4 to 8, having funded them over the years. By the same odd logic, tax-payers own a lot of old hospitals, crumbling schools and forgotten roads. Selling the site was the only option, and brokering a development deal wasn't a bad idea. The income from the sale is piffling; the BBC gets £200m. The real win for Auntie is removing the annual costs of running a 14-acre site, with monster power, maintenance and security issues. Downsizing is a much more important part of making budget cuts than most past and current staff want to recognise - and getting the balance right between output, technical facilities and staff will help preserve the jobs of programme-makers, which is what we all want.


Sunday, April 28, 2013

Village Preservation Society

Odd time for a press release - 0213 this morning - but good news for the bit players of Hayfield in Derybshire. Danny Cohen has recommissioned The Village for a second series, which we are told will be more upbeat. That's as opposed to the unrelenting misery of the first series so far, which has seen overnight figures plummet. Tonight Episode 5 (of 6) is up against Episode 3 (of 4), of Endeavour, the Morse spin-off, on ITV.

The Roaring Twenties will be more cheerful, we are told. Perhaps they'll skip the Great Strike and its precursors, textile and coal mine closures, mass trespasses, polio, measles and scarlet fever. Maybe everyone will move to London, drink cocktails and dance.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Spade work

It will be interesting to see how many sneak under the severance pay stable door at the BBC, which Lord Hall plans to shut firmly in September.  It seems that if an exit deal is already under construction, this may mean some staff leaving with settlements above £150k.

Lord Hall's next miracle will be to persuade some managers that their posts might actually be filled by someone else when they wish to leave Auntie's bosom. Rather than renaming the role and pretending their departure is a redundancy. That would be an even cheaper way forward.


Friday, April 26, 2013

Gastric canal

Stay classy, Salford Quays.

How about a two and a half hour canal boat cruise, passing MediaCityUK, The Lowry and Old Trafford ?  From just £23, including "Two-course set menu: spaghetti bolognese with warm garlic bread and homemade sticky toffee pudding with custard".  That, apparently, includes a 60% discount.

Transfer news

Antony "Big" Fry is stepping down as a BBC Trustee, to join the Premier League as Chairman - which looks like much more fun.

The investment banker and serial non-exec has been running the Trust's Finance Committee, and has had to face Ma Hodges's Public Accounts Committee on pay and tax. In the last reported six months, he's claimed expenses of £382.98 and had the "hospitality" of attending two Reith Lectures. His fees, for two days a week, add up to £37,660 a year.

A scheduling mystery

There was a late change to the BBC4 schedules last night, when many had been looking forward to a documentary entitled "Jerusalem: An Archaeological mystery".

This was the Guardian's preview....

Film-maker Ilan Ziv will likely ruffle some feathers with this documentary, which questions whether the Jewish people were exiled following the fall of Jerusalem in the first century. The expulsion of the Jews in 70AD, after a failed uprising against the Roman empire, has played a central role in Christian and Jewish theology. Ziv, sifting new evidence, casts doubt on this account, raising the question of what actually happened to the Jews, and exploring the impact this has had on the contemporary Middle East.

Is it possible feathers were sufficiently ruffled by such previews that the BBC was lobbied to re-consider ?  Viewers last night were offered instead a repeat of The Man Who Discovered Egypt.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

"Romulus and Remus"

It started promisingly. Little and Large Lords Patten and Hall had their lines sorted before their first show as a double act at the Commons Culture Committee; Hall tossed out an early rip-snorter with news of a proposal to cap severance pay at the BBC at £150k, as in the Civil Service, likely to affect 250 staff.

We were told that James Purnell had hung up his political boots sometime ago. We learned that the BBC Management Board (despised by Thompson) now meets every Tuesday (from monthly previously), and that there's a new Red Flag system for controversial-programmes-in-the-making once a week on the Executive morning conference call. We learned that Lord Hall will be on the final interview panel for a new Newsnight editor, with an appointment expected in two weeks. We learned that James Harding is to be known as Director of News and Current Affairs. And we learned that Lord Hall's big changes for the future will come in September/October.

The committee slowly ramped things up. A fistful of questions about Pollard Punishments, or lack of them, particularly Lord Hall's move of Helen Boaden from News to Radio. Then a concerted pop at the Panorama on North Korea. Lord Hall revealed an offer to make all the students anonymous, and not mention the LSE at all in the programme; "sadly" he said, the LSE rejected the offer. And he also revealed the key role of the BBC's "High Risk" team - safety advisers, usually from an Army background. They advised against getting written consent from the students used as cover - in apparent contradiction of BBC editorial guidelines. And clearly made an assessment that discounted or fail to assess the risk to tour guides and the wider reputation of the LSE. This isn't going away.

Things got a little easier towards the end; Hall held out the prospect of reviewing budget cuts to Newsnight, once a new editor was in place, and made comforting noises about the balance of spend within News on local radio.

Then hackles rose slightly as it came to Philip Davies' turn. Lord Patten was patient, hoping not to add to his YouTube account. Lord Hall bristled slightly, pointing his spectacles at the Tory a little too much. Davies accused the pair of being Romulus and Remus. But there were no fisticuffs.

Mentioned in dispatches by the BBC side throughout: James Harding, Ceri Thomas, Ben Cooper, Stephanie Flanders, Hugh Pym, Jeremy Bowen, Ian Pannell, Blakeway Productions, Sam on Introducing from BBC Radio Bristol - and yes, "the brilliant" David Dimbleby.




Winning

I struggle a little with Lord Hall's assertion to MPs on the Culture Select Committee this morning, that James Purnell has "hung his boots up at the door and left politics behind two or three years ago".

This is from a fringe meeting at last year's Labour Party Conference; James says "how we win" in the first 30 seconds.

Question masters

Lords Patten and Hall head to the Grimond Room in Portcullis House today for a grilling by MPs of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

Liberal leader Jo Grimond was generally a civilised and low-key politician, who only occasionally lashed out.  One such spasm was aimed at the Dimbleby dynasty.  He said the BBC was run by a cosy group of people who "think the same thoughts...live in the same circles, and even it seems if one dies, a successor is better to have the same name.  How many more Dimblebys have been employed by the BBC ? ... unless you are one of the dinner gongs to which the Pavlov's dogs of the media respond, you have little chance of being on it".

In 1970, David was presenting 24 Hours, Jonathan was presenting The World This Week on Radio 4, and Sally was employed as a BBC researcher.  43 years on, David is in the third year of a five year BBC contract, and still at the helm of Question Time after nine years. Jonathan Dimbleby has been chairing Any Questions ? on Radio 4 since 1987.  Sally went on from the BBC to be company secretary for a number of Dimbleby firms, and was last reported in the press failing to complete the Dittisham Regatta in 2012, finding the shallows of Tea Leaf Bay on the River Dimbleby Dart.

David's children are Liza, an artist; Henry, co-founder of fast food chain Leon, Government advisor on school dinners, author of a weekly food column in The Guardian, and contributor to Woman's Hour on Radio 4; and Kate, a jazz and folk singer, who featured on Woman's Hour last June.  Henry Dimbleby had a brief tv acting career at the age of 13 as Tom Dudgeon in BBC adaptations of Arthur Ransome's Coot Club and The Big Six.

Jonathan's son Dan trained as a chef, then had a career in tv, moving up from sound on Jamie's Kitchen, to producer on Masterchef. He now runs an ice-cream van company.  Jonathan's daughter, Kitty, writes occasionally for the Daily Mail, and has penned a book about being an army wife.


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Now then

Regular readers will know what joy I take in punters sparring with the BBC over Freedom of Information requests. At the moment, the BBC is adopting a very defensive stance. Take this simple question, from October last year


Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,

What was the total amount of money given to Jimmy Saville by the
BBC before his death in 2011?

Yours faithfully,

richard


The BBC gloves, protecting the head, say they've found some written information, not the whole story,   but it isn't apparently possible to scan them into PDFs. This seems odd, as there are PDFs of documents as venerable as the Magna Carta. And odder, because the inquirer asked for a total, not a set of documents. Nonetheless, the BBC is ready to post physical copies - so, address, please Richard.


Dear Stephanie,

Please send the documents to 10 Downing St, London SW1A 2AA.
Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

richard

Towering

New visuals for Television Centre have been released by developer Stanhope, ahead of a detailed planning application in May. The mixed-use development by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, working alongside Duggan Morris, HOK and Maccreanor Lavington includes offices, shops, studio space for the BBC, leisure facilities, a hotel and 1,000 new homes.

The big change is "re-positioning" the ugly old East Tower. They actually mean knocking the old one down, but building something nicer, the same size, almost on Wood Lane. Will that wash with the Council ? If nothing else, it'll cast a giant shadow on the TC forecourt from midday on...


More Richie

Richie Havens was an enormous part of my college life; in 1970 I didn't own many albums, so it was a pleasure when mates found "new" stuff and shared. One important one was the double "Richie P Havens, 1983", and if you read about it on Wikipedia, you're reminded that Richie was not just a "covers" folkie, but a real songwriter. (And that he worked with a core group of musicians who contributed just as much to the sound as Richie's rattling guitar - Eric Oxendine on bass,  Paul "Dino" Williams on guitar, Daniel Ben Zebulon and Emile Latimer on congas and Joe Price on percussion)

One Havens' original, Handsome Johnny, was an anti-war collaboration written with actor Lou Gossett Jr, also from Brooklyn, and first recorded for the Mixed Bag album in 1967. (Diversion: Lou went on to play Fiddler in the tv series Roots - and Lamont Dozier wrote Going Back to My Roots inspired by the series. Richie recorded his version in 1980). In the film version of the Woodstrock Festival, it's edited to be the show opener.

The "universal soldier" theme was repeated in the song Minstrel From Gault, (sometimes "Gaul" on iTunes) -  the first song actually performed at the Woodstrock Festival - at 5.07pm on Friday August 15th 1969. It was co-written with Mark Roth, who also produced - and took the photos for many of Richie's album covers.  There's a studio version I like, on Stonehenge (one of the few Havens records I was "allowed" to buy first) featuring then-fashionable tubular bells. This live version is from the On Stage album, issued in 1972.

But, you cry, where and what was Gault ? Not, I think, clay. I suspect it was made up. Please let me know if you have an alternative answer.

Richie wasn't all hippy, however. I saw him once, at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, standing at the front. He had the smartest pair of brown loafers under the kaftan. He once sang a "Coke is it" jingle, but will be longer associated with Amtrak - spool to 2.41 below to enjoy....

Complete ?

BBC DG Tony Hall wrote to staff thus, about appointment of Danny Cohen as the new Director of Television...

Danny will sit on both the Executive and Management Boards. He will take up his new role on 7 May and work with Roger Mosey on a smooth transition. 

As with the Director of News, this was an advertised role. This appointment completes the senior team and I am very much looking forward to us all working together to shape the future for the BBC.

This does, however, leave one dangler. What title will Roger Mosey have when he completes his handover of (Tele)Vision ? He can't really go back to his old job - Director of London 2012.  Will he be competing for an advertised role ?

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Compensation

Is the relativities conundrum holding up the announcement of a new Director of BBC Television ?

If @TheTVController is right, Danny Cohen is preparing an acceptance speech (of passion, privilege, commitment, challenge, innovation, etc). His salary as Controller of BBC1 is £262,200, and total package £270,400. George Entwistle was Director of Vision for less than a year, on a salary of £270,000.
*George Entwistle was Director of Vision for 18 months (three of them acting) on a salary of £270k and a total package of £284k. Danny's rival for the vacancy, Peter Salmon, is on a salary of £375k and a total package of £387k, as Director BBC North. Which is the bigger job ? Come on, Lucy...

1045 Update: Danny Cohen appointed, on a total package of £327,800.  That's *£43,000 more than George Entwistle got, when he was appointed Director of Vision in 2011. In buzz word bingo, I scored low...

“I'm honoured to be taking over as Director of BBC Television. Our ambition is to be the finest broadcaster and producer in the world and our values will be based on talent, creativity, storytelling and innovation. I've had a wonderful time at BBC One and am grateful for the work of all the talented people who have made the channel the most popular in the UK in recent years."

*Updated thanks to contribution from anon eagle-eyed reader.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Richie Havens RIP

Richie Havens has died at the age of 72.

An extraordinarily generous man, he happily shared his idiosyncratic guitar technique on the web. Here, even tuning up is musical, as he segues Tupelo Honey and Just Like A Woman. Take a screen break and listen.



It looks like Daniel

If Danny Cohen IS to be Director of Television at the BBC, the parody account knew on Friday...





and continued to be cocky about it from around midday today





Breakfast holes

Another speech-based breakfast show is looking for a new editor: Scott Solder, editor of 5Live Breakfast since July 2010, is leaving in May, to become Deputy Editor of The One Show. The new job involves work on the "current affairs" element of the show, in London, and yes, Salford.

No word yet on a permanent replacement for Ceri Thomas, at Today on Radio 4.

Didacts

I'm grateful to FishbowlNY for this picture of limeys Peter Horrocks, Mark Thompson and Janine Gibson explaining to David Carr (Minnesota and New York) a few things about social media (Twitter, from San Francisco; Facebook from Massachusetts) at the New York Times this weekend.


Cheer up

Whilst the ratings battle between The Voice and Britain's Got Talent looks inconclusive at this stage (particularly when you add catch-up figures, which seem to favour The Voice), things are not so rosy for the BBC's answer to Heimat, The Village. Planned, though not commissioned, to run for seven series of six episodes, the trend in overnight figures is not good - and needs serious help from the iPlayer.


Getting your teeth into the job

Is it possible to stay in employment after a biting incident ?

There are precedents for Luis Suarez.  Former BBC DG Mark Thompson, for example.

Here's an extract from Antony Massey's version of the event.

"It was late summer or early autumn of 1988 when he [Thompson] was the newly appointed editor of the Nine O'Clock News, and I was a Home News Organiser. It was 9.15 in the morning, in the middle of the old sixth floor newsroom. 

"I went up to his desk to talk about some story after the 9.00 meeting we used to have then. I was standing next to him on his right, and he was sitting reading his horoscope in the Daily Star (I always remember that detail). 

"Before I could say a word he suddenly turned, snarled, and sank his teeth into my left upper arm (leaving marks through the shirt, but not drawing blood). It hurt. I pulled my arm out of his jaws, like a stick out of the jaws of a labrador."

I wonder if anyone forwarded the story to the Respect At Work review ?

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Credits

From Wikipedia: America in Primetime is a 2011 four-part documentary series, focusing on television in the United States. Produced for and broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the series is a production by The Documentary Group, in collaboration with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation and WETA-TV.

From the BBC2 website: The United States of Television: America in Primetime. Alan Yentob presents a series documenting the history of primetime television in America, from the age of mass television in the 1950s to the present.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Leaping

Tone has a few of his old mates round to Broadcasting House next week.

Members of the House of Lords Communications Committee are paying a private visit. Some shouldn't need it - Lord (Melvyn) Bragg, for example, And perhaps Baroness (Joan) Bakewell. Baroness (Ruth) Deech may have already been shown round by her journalist daughter. The Bishop of Norwich, the Right Reverend Graham James, might like to see the Today studio - at the other end of his Norfolk contributions to Thought for the Day.

Global sums

Some odds and ends about BBC.com, gathered together for a Freedom of Information request.

BBC.com, the "internationally-facing" website, which carries content from BBC News, generated £25m in advertising revenue in the financial year ending March 2012. It claims to reach 58m households outside the UK - and have 22.8m unique users in the United States - roughly 39%.  

The annual budget provision for BBC World Service is around £250m - although we don't yet know what's planned for 2014. BBC.com joined with BBC World in September last year, to form BBC Global News Ltd. Before that, BBC World (the tv news channel) finances were reported within BBC Worldwide, and mentioned only twice, without figures, in the 2012 annual report.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Two of us ?

Congratulations to Sally Osman, (hard not to write "Little" in front), former BBC comms chief, now heading to St James's Palace to look after the reputations of Charles and Camilla.

But will she be on her own ?  At the BBC from 1999 to 2007, she's been happy to reveal she was "coached" throughout.  Support included BBC-go-to-provider Jenny Rogers, who's probably heard more secrets from Auntie than anyone....

Show time

Ever since the "worked-out-over-a-weekend" licence fee deal was announced in October 2010, we've been waiting for details of exactly how the BBC World Service will be funded from 2014.

There's been mention of papers, and positioning, and reports, in BBC Trust minutes, but nothing we can read. So the Foreign Affairs Committee has had a pop, to encourage a little transparency.

We find it unacceptable that the BBC World Service will not know for certain either the priorities, targets or characteristics which have been set for it, or its budget from April 2014 onwards, until only a few months before the new arrangements for oversight and funding come into effect. We do not see how the BBC World Service can plan properly how to reflect its new priorities, pursue its new objectives or shape its output according to the Operating Licence given the short lead-in time..... 

We recommend that a draft Operating Licence should be shared with the BBC World Service without delay and that the forthcoming consultation on the BBC World Service's Operating Licence should take place as early as possible—ideally before the summer—and should be on the basis of a published draft.

It's not just an Operating Licence that should be published - a long-term financial strategy that ring fences some funds needs to be set out. Will the World Service get "hypothecated" money from advertising on BBC.com or BBC World - or will it have to fight for a share of a bigger pot ?

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Family man

The Guardian says there's no condition attached to James Harding's £1.3m pay off from News International which prevents him starting work at the BBC straightaway - he's simply familiarising himself with the myriad news departments before starting in August.

That's not quite the same picture as received at the BBC, where they expect him to lurk for six weeks, before taking some paternity leave - wife Kate is expecting their second child. Six weeks would take us to the end of May; leaving June and July free before an August start.

News International's paternity leave is not quite as generous...

PATERNITY LEAVEEmployees employed for 26 weeks or more have the right to take either one or two consecutive weeks leave. Employees who have been with the company for at least one year at the start of their leave, or who have returned to work for at least one year since the end of previous leave, will receive one week on full basic pay.

Chief

So farewell, Torin "Torrid" Douglas, BBC Media Correspondent since 1988, who is hanging up his Corporation iPhone at the end of May.

After graduating from Warwick, Torin joined the staff of DC Thomson's Weekly News (launched in 1855 and still going) where he was required to write a consumer column under the byline "Anne Muir". Thence to Campaign, the IBA, Marketing Week, The Times and The Independent.

He came to the BBC in the Radio News & Current Affairs department - many of whom thought the idea of a media correspondent was just too racy.  On his first day he was taken on a tour of introduction. PM presenter, Valerie Singleton, “looked at me and in her best Blue Peter tones said ‘What is a media correspondent?’” At Today, presenter Brian Redhead told him “Oh well, I hope you get a proper job one day”.

He kept it ticking over very nicely for 25 years - too often having to steer through stories inside the BBC, but doing it with clarity and without fear.

VIP

Somebody's PR machine is ticking over.

Lead story in the online edition of Broadcast today: Alan Yentob is playing a pivotal role in Tony Hall’s efforts to assemble a “world-class” senior management team – a sign of his growing influence since the arrival of the director general.

From Ephraim Hardcastle in the Mail on Monday: The arrival of former BBC ‘lifer’ Tony Hall as Lord Patten-anointed director general has put a spring in the step of another old lag, so-called creative director Alan Yentob, 66. My source says: ‘Yentob’s office is next to Hall’s and he is behaving as if he’s his No 2.’ Isn’t life grand ?

One source tells me Mr Yentob even got to cast a critical eye over "Professor" Sweeney's home movie from North Korea before it went out. Of course, it may not have been the real Alan.....





Access

A slightly sad new media day for me yesterday. I reached my article limit on the Telegraph website; from now, if I want to read more than 20 individual items a month, it means parting with dosh. It feels like a tipping point; with the Times paywalled, and the FT giving me just three of four free pieces, I'm essentially left with The Guardian unfettered - a quarter of this country's quality newspaper journalism. It's like the packing away of a glorious free playpen of interesting stories and ideas.

The dingy university common room, then the BBC, gave me all the access to papers I ever wanted. It was unlikely that it could last forever; maybe I'll have to use a library - do we still have them ?

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Old Pauline

A little more work on James Paul Harding, new Director of BBC News.

Among his contemporaries at St Paul's School were George Osborne and Matthew Gould, Britain's Ambassador to Israel; Ed Vaizey was a little older.

Danna and friend
At one stage he was married to fellow journalist Danna Harman, now writing for Haaretz and based in Jaffa. James and Danna took part in various learned panel discussions, when he was FT Bureau chief in Washington and she was writing for the Christian Science Monitor. They were divorced in 2008.

In 2009, James was engaged to Telegraph writer Kate Weinberg, daughter of  financier Sir Mark Weinberg. They were married at Westminster Synagogue, settled in Brook Green, and in 2011, after a babymoon, Kate gave birth to a boy.
.
The Independent says that Harding and David Cameron played tennis together before Cameron became an MP, and in 2006 they were reported to be staying together at Jacob Rothschild's villa in Corfu. Jacob is Sir Mark Weinberg's business partner.

Mr Harding has claimed in the past to be a QPR supporter.

Dry run

Lord Patten travelled to Lady Thatcher's funeral on the tube, in full morning suit. It was a rare sighting for the BBC Chairman, whose profile has been low to undetectable since the arrival of the new DG at Broadcasting House at the start of the month.

Next week, he and Lord [Tony] Hall will appear in front of the baying Jack Russells of the Commons Culture Select Committee. Much will be read into body language, facial tics, deference (or lack of it), matey-ness (or lack of it).  One presumes there will be some rehearsal - maybe James Purnell could play the part of a chippy MP ?


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Cyclisme

Well, we steered you as best we could to the James Harding appointment.

The BBC will now hope this distracts from the row over John Sweeney's Postcard from North Korea, presented with standard louche pomposity by the exploding tomato. You get the feeling that, once committed, some executives must have been defending this exercise through clenched teeth.

But there are also odds and ends with the arrival of Mr Harding as Editor of BBC News, probably including money. How come he's only available for six weeks familiarisation, before a formal start in August ? Is there some condition attached to his reported £1.3m settlement with News Corp after resigning from Editorship of The Times ? Or has he committed to another book ?

When he does arrive, his "package" has been set at £340k - that compares with Helen Boaden's total deal of £354k. It's below that agreed with Anne Bulford and more than required to sign James Purnell.

Will James cycle to work ?  Will he be allowed to share the Yentob executive bike rack ? Has he got a middle name ?  So much to discover...


  • After nearly a full weekend of bulletin and programme publicity, centred on Sweeney v LSE, Panorama hauled 5.06m viewers - best for a while, against Coronation Street, and a breaking news story in Boston.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Love

Clearly, if you were a new Editor of a news organisation, you wouldn't want your first day hi-jacked by tricky questions about the journalistic ethics of the previous regime. So I now don't expect the announcement of a new Editor of BBC News until well after tonight's Panorama.

If I'm right, you might like to know a little more about James Harding, former Editor of The Times. He got a first in History at Trinity College, Cambridge, but might not have been entirely bookish. Contemporaries at Trinity included Alexander Armstrong; elsewhere in the city Ben Miller was going out with Rachel Weisz, not far away in Trinity Hall. It's possible James knew Rachel from London - he was at St Paul's School in Barnes; she did her A-levels at St Paul's Girls School in Brook Green.

Jez Butterworth was at St John's, and became a friend. Jez eventually became flatmates with Miller in London - and, in 1992, an evening of four playlets, under the title "I Believe in Love", co-written by Butterworth and James Harding, directed by Butterworth, was performed at the Etcetera Theatre, above the Oxford Tavern in Camden High Street. Among the cast was Sasha Behar, who played 'Mad' Maya Sharma in Coronation Street, and has just joined Holby City.

In 1995 James was on the post-grad newspaper journalism course at City University, as a Financial Times trainee. Contemporaries included Matt Wells, now US editor of blogs and networks for the Guardian, and Guardian interview specialist Decca Aitkenhead.

Somewhere along the line at the FT he may have crossed paths with Nick Denton, now US based new media mogul - and owner of website Gawker. Gawker described James as "insanely hot" when he was first appointed Editor of The Times.

Gong bill

The BBC spent £40,240 (excluding VAT) on entries for the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2012, and estimates a further £46,000 went on tickets for the award ceremony.

Someone who bought their own ticket last year says they cost £200 - so that's fun and frolics for around 230.

1110 Update: A loyal reader has calculated the "CPG" (Cost Per Gong - Gold, Silver, Bronze) from the 2012 haul as follows...


Radio 1 / 1X - £525
Radio 2 - £411
Radio 3 - £1,100
Radio 4 £385
Radio 5 Live - £313
6 Music - £725
Wales - £1,445
Scotland - £2,720
Local Radio - £3,162

The Mourning Sword

The back page of the Order of Service for Lady Thatcher's funeral carries Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality.

I can feel a parody of the whole document being prepared for this week's Private Eye...

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Mr and Mrs

This Sweeney stuff is all a bit odd. It's stated his wife, Tomiko, lectures at the LSE, but the only Tomiko I can find on the London School of Economics website is Tomiko Newson (her maiden name) as a July 2012 BSc graduate in international relations and history. She clearly visited North Korea in the same way last year - and reported for From Our Own Correspondent, as well as getting several newspaper articles published - without concern about her cover.  The only other journalistic credit I can find is for a piece on binge drinking by women in the BBC Online News Magazine, from December 2006.

John and Tomiko appeared to have tied the knot in 2007, in a wedding in a remote part of Cornwall - not remote enough, apparently, as John believes there was a Scientologist hiding in the bushes taking photographs.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Too low

"BBC [Tele] Vision is the biggest integrated multimedia broadcast and production group in the world".

But, it seems, not awfully well integrated. Here's a Freedom of Information request, and part of the answer. I'm guessing BBC [Tele]Vision has just under 1,700 staff on its books.

Questions

1.  “How many African-Caribbean males did the BBC Vision employ on 31st December 2012, or on 
the date of the last count (whichever is the most recent date)? 

2.  A breakdown of how many African-Caribbean male staff there are in: 

a.  BBC Vision are in bands SM1 and SM2;
b.  BBC Vision are in grades 2 to 11, including 7L. 


Response to Questions 1 and 2 

The BBC does not record information on the ethnicity of staff using the classification ‘African-
Caribbean’ as per your request, however under the heading ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ (heading 2, as 
explained above), we collect information on those employees who are Black African and Black 
Caribbean as well as mixed ethnicity categories which include White & Black African and White & 
Black Caribbean.  We have looked at staff in these 4 categories in order to obtain information 
relevant to your request. 

In relation to questions 1 and 2, we are withholding the information held by the BBC about staff in 
the 4 categories identified above under section 40(2) of the Act.  As the response relates to a small 
number of staff, this could lead to individuals being identified.  Personal information about living 
individuals is exempt if disclosure to a third party would breach one or more principles of the Data 
Protection Act 1998.  The individuals concerned would not expect personal details relating to their 
ethnicity to be disclosed.  To do so would be unfair; therefore, disclosure would breach the First Data 
Protection Principle, fair and lawful processing.  

Sweet shop

There was a distinct whiff of boiling sugar (to around 115C) emanating from Broadcasting House yesterday, as Ben Cooper, Controller of BBC1, Graham Ellis, acting Director of Radio, and Director General Lord Hall, decided to broadcast "five or six seconds" of "Ding Dong The Wicked Witch Is Dead" in Sunday's chart rundown - plus a "journalist explaining the context". On Radio 2, wild child Jane Garvey, sitting in for Jeremy Vine, had riskily played nearly 15 seconds - there is no news on whether or not that act of bravado had been "referred up" and endorsed.

Here's Eddie Mair pulling a few wings off Ben Cooper.




Meanwhile in television land, Danny Cohen has blinked in the scheduling war between The Voice and Britain's Got Talent. Simon Cowell seems to have made this battle personal, throwing his sexuality into a wide range of tacky media promotional items, including, gallingly for the BBC, a Radio Times interview conducted by doyenne of popular culture, Emily Maitlis.

Cohen risks losing audience for more than The Voice - next week to be bracketed between the old-skewed demographic pairing of The Lottery and Casualty. He also "loses" BBC money; a shorter Voice means an increase in costs per hour for the show, and more spending on output to fill the gap. The adult nature of current Casualty storylines (original British drama beloved of Tony Garnett) means it can't come before the watershed, so Danny's boxed in.



Suits

It looks like the BBC Global News Ltd Board may spend a little more on teleconferencing from now on - or hold meetings in the USA..

Two new non-executives have been appointed. Jon Miller, a resident of New York, was, until September last year, NewsCorp's digital supremo, and he's still on contract for a year to advise Rupert Murdoch. He joined NewsCorp in 2009, from AOL where he was CEO. Mr Miller is also a member of the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute, The International Emmy Association, The Paley Center for Media and the Independent Film Project.


 Rob Norman is a new media agency specialist, currently Chief Digital Officer of GroupM Worldwide, a division of WPP. Born in the UK, he too lives in New York. He is also a director of Xaxis, Wild Tangent, the 4A's, the Ad Council and the Mobile Marketing Association. He is a member of the Facebook Client Council and of the Library Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. According to one biog, he is a fan of the New York Mets, the New York Jets, Tottenham Hotspur and Warren Buffett.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Circling

Jeff Zucker's now tinkering with the CNN evening schedule - edging closer to the Piers Morgan problem. He experimented for part of last week with a discussion show, The Point, to follow Piers Morgan Live, at 10pm. That didn't do business.

This week, he's back to following Piers with a repeat of the Anderson Cooper 8pm hour - and, despite the extraodinary fast turnaround, it is still largely doing better business than Morgan.  So next week, Zucker is trying a repeat of the Jake Tapper 4pm hour in the 10pm slot after the beleaguered Arsenal fan.

Note also in the graph below how many switch away from CNN after the first airing of Anderson Cooper. All figures 25-54 year-olds in thousands.


Hysterical

Has a Gold Commander been appointed to deal with this week's big BBC decision ?  The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, have decided that now DG Tony Hall now owns the apparent problem of whether or not to play a 74-year-old show tune, currently in the popular music charts, on Radio 1 this weekend. In their dyspeptic, dystopian world, this is their lead story.  In the words of many, you couldn't make it up.

It's Judy Garland's film version of "Ding, Dong, The Wicked Witch Is Dead" that's leading the way into the chart returns, with Ella Fitzgerald's 1961 take running behind. In instrumental form, the tune was the play-out music for many episodes of The Goon Show.



The wholesome US TV show Glee offered a more recent version...

.

The chart show starts at 1600 on Sunday.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Got a light ?

There's no white smoke yet from the BBC on the appointment of a new Director of News - but they may be getting appropriate kindling together in the next few days in the basement boilers of Dr Evil's Volcano News Lair Broadcasting House.

The word is two candidates have been seen - in DG Tone's first competitive interviews since rejoining - and that James Harding, formerly Editor of the Times and admired by many (other than Rupert Murdoch) may well have shaded it. But don't go to the bookies just yet. The word may be mangled, and the story may be based on assumptions that Director of Television vacnacy now looks more likely to go to an internal candidate.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Laurels

It's a real pleasure to see the BBC Asian Network in the list of three selected as nominations for UK Radio Station of the Year in the Sony Radio Academy Awards; it's pitted against Radio 5 Live and Classic FM. The winner will be revealed on May 13.

5 Live has done well in nominations for Speech Broadcaster of the Year, with hopes for Nicky Campbell, Victoria Derbyshire and Danny Baker; interlopers are Eddie Mair (R4) and Stephen Sackur for BBC World Service, with the bi-media HardTalk.

And the Breakfast category looks interesting, with Chris Evans vying with Today and Radio 3 for the BBC side; and Kiss Breakfast and Christian O'Connell at Absolute carrying the commercial flag.

Passion play

In a week in which the nation has contemplated the record of divisive figures, it seems BBC DG Lord Hall has been canvassing internal opinion on the return of Jay Hunt from Channel 4 to run BBC Television.

Raspberries aren't the only fruit, but the verdict means that Tony will have to search left-field now if he wants to bring in new faces to the Sanderson Commissioning Suite at Broadcasting House. Internally, the front-runners remain Peter Salmon, late fifties, standing on a diversity platform, and, in theory, with a family house to sell in Manchester; and Danny Cohen, edging to 40, reportedly in Cannes with drama commissioner Ben Stephenson. (Tony was 42 when he became Director of News).

Ben, who apparently flirted with a move from the BBC until Tony took him for a tour of the Royal Opera House, was previously tipped to fill a Cohen-shaped hole when Danny moved from BBC3 to run BBC1. Textual analysis suggests Ben is already close to the top level in creative speakak (copyright The late Erik De Mauny) and has now added "passion" - a Hall banker - to his armoury.  Here's something from his announcement of two new drama commissions yesterday...

"Quality and creative integrity are crucial to achieving international success. Co-production should be a means of achieving the scale of a writer’s vision, not a creative compromise. The best dramas translate internationally because they are driven by an ambition that goes to the heart of the piece."

"Both of these new commissions are passion projects for Jimmy McGovern and Tony Jordan - and are projects only the BBC would make."

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

How I am doing ?

The BBC hopes to have more "meaningful conversations" with staff about their performance this year, ahead of determining individual pay. There'll be no compulsion to fill in paper forms, or the current online forms (which are apparently "a nightmare" - this from the organisation that streamed all of the Olympics and developed the iPlayer). Managers are apparently expected at the least to deliver a rating (1 to 5) verbally, but the appraisee can opt not to have the verdict recorded on their files - a gap that may speak volumes.

There is, sadly, evidence in the Pollard report of a systemic failure to conduct meaningful conversations at the top of the BBC.  And sometimes, the conversations with on-air talent are less than honest, delivering this outcome, from a neat graphic currently doing the rounds...














Leading the decision on meaningful conversations is HR Director Karen Moran, previously Head of the BBC Academy's College of Leadership - below lecturing last year.




Swingometer

The current generation of tv watchers voted with their remotes last night. After Margaret Thatcher's death brought rolling news and news specials, the EastEnders audience for BBC1 was 7.25m (close to thirty per cent share). The average audience for the hour and a half special narrated by Andrew Marr that followed was 2.48m (just under 10 per cent).

Next, the funeral.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Limbo ?

Glasgow artist Frank To has an interesting take on his home city, in his latest exhibition. "The starting point to the theme came to me when travelling on Glasgow’s subway, when the outer and inner circles brought to mind the nine circles of Hell as described in Dante’s Inferno".

Below, a monoprint, entitled The Arrival of Dante. It is not explained why he should appear over the BBC's state of the art headquarters - nor of which cirle of hell, if any, it forms a part. 

The Arrival of Dante c Frank To

Whiff

In the world of audience figures, it's always admirable when someone concocts a new way of putting things. I noticed this, in the advert for someone to replace Andrew Roy as Head of News at BBC World (the tv channel).

We attract more than 300 million homes in more than 200 countries and territories.

Is it, perchance, the pheromones ? And how many people inside those homes might be watching, exactly ?

Image

Can you - should you - read anything into someone's choice of a Twitter profile photo ?

As I sit awaiting news of a busy April of appointments at the BBC, here's a picture of two great literary figures - on the left, James Harding, former Editor of the Times, legs akimbo, from his Twitter account. On the right, Ernest Hemingway.















And below, on the left, again from Twitter, James Purnell, plotting a digital future for the BBC - to his right, a man acting the part of James Bond.


Sunday, April 7, 2013

Aujourd'hui

The vast majority of those who listen to Today on Radio 4 will have thrown something at their set at one stage or another in disagreement/disgust/despair at what they're hearing. However, collectively, they do not want change. Don't touch the pips, Thought for the Day, the racing tips, the portentous bulletins, the laconic weather summaries,  the political punch-ups and the big set pieces. (Peter Preston summarises this problem well in The Observer).

Odd then, that a requirement for the next Editor of the programme, just advertised, is "some experience of successfully managing change". What can this mean ?  Is it the dreaded "social media" stuff ?

There is a generation of tyros who might be in the parade ring for the job - often, a stepping stone to greater things, cf Jenny Abramsky, Phil Harding, Roger Mosey, Ceri Thomas; or different things, cf Rod Liddle and Kevin Marsh.

Those contemplating applying might include acting Ed, Jasmin Buttar (257 Twitter followers); Jamie Angus currently straddling Newsnight and Global News (558 followers); Gavin Allen, former Deputy Editor and currently Editor, Politics (not obviously on Twitter); Alistair Burnett, editor of the World Tonight (1,258 followers); Mark Sandell, ex Five Live and currently with World Service (1,510 followers); Jo Carr, editor of PM, currently on maternity leave (3,042 followers); and Nick Sutton, Editor of The World At One and more (a whopping 42,725 followers - it may have a lot to do with his public service role Tweeting Fleet Street's front pages as they come in). Any other tips gratefully received.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Gestation period

There's something a bit odd about a nine-month extension to a contract, but I can't put my finger on it.

John Humphrys joined the Today programme as a presenter in January 1987. Prior to that, his career had been as newspaper, then tv, reporter and correspondent, and presenter of the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1. I'm not sure at what stage he renounced his BBC staff status, but he's now described as "freelance"; newspaper reports this week say at one stage he may have been paid via a company, but that's passed.

In 2011 he agreed at two-year contract with the BBC for Today, at £2,500 a show - down from his previous £3,000. In a full year, he'd cover 150 days. For his pains, he's up around 4.00am and finished by 9.00am. On Saturdays, which John likes, it's a shorter show, and there's less to read up.

Nine months takes him to the end of November. Yet at the same time he's agreed a three-year deal with Mastermind - where he's been inquisitor since 2003. There, he's estimated to be on £5,000 a show - around 30 editions of Mastermind proper and 10 or so of Celebrity Mastermind each year. They are all now recorded in MediaCityUK, usually in groups of two or more - so the total daily earnings can more than compensate for the trip north.

John doesn't seem to have an agent for tv and radio, and presumably did the new radio deal with his recently-promoted Today editor, Ceri Thomas. He does have a literary agent - Luigi Bonomi, who also looks after Alan Titchmarsh, Esther Rantzen and Melanie Phillips. One suspects his writing for newspapers  - The Mail, Sunday Times and occasionally The Telegraph - usually on farming, the house in Greece, and being John Humphrys, is sorted direct.

He's also available for conferences and other speaking engagements. In the past year, he's been after-dinner speaker for licenced members of the National Approved Letting Scheme at a hotel near Tower Bridge; chaired a two day conference in Manchester set up by local-authority-outsourcing-specialist Civica; and hosted the energy conference below. His fee group is £10k-15k via the Gordon Poole Agency, but all other big agencies have him on their lists.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Curb a Peel ?

Those interested in the activities of the Peel Group should read a new report by Liverpool-based think tank, Ex Urbe. It's chaired by former Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle, but has a Tory and Libdem on the board of trustees, as well as local academics.

Peel are the developers behind MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, where the BBC is an anchor tenant. Ex Urbe are interested in whether Sir John Whittaker's plans for Liverpool will lead to a new name, Liverpeel.

From the introducation: We at ExUrbe believe that it is more important than ever that the people and businesses of the Liverpool City Region are fully aware of the kind of organisation to which their future hopes have been hitched. After all, Peel is now the dominant influence within the city region. It owns the port; it has a significant stake in the airport; it has a huge landbank on either side of the Mersey; it has two representatives on the Local Enterprise Partnership (including its chairman); and has massive developments planned within four of the six local authorities. 

That dominance - with no real democratic accountability – makes it necessary to throw a light on the practices, finances and record of Peel. Only with a transparent account of the organisation is it possible to properly assess and judge the nature of the beast to which the Liverpool City Region is now harnessed.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Plus ca change

And so, as we head to the end of week one of the BBC recovery, a look at the balance sheet.

We have a promise of action on large executive pay-offs; we have a strike by Broadcasting House tour guides; we have a Tory complaint about how the bloke who challenged IDS to live on £53 a week ended up on air; we have the makings of a scheduling stand-off between The Voice and Britain's Got Talent. Almost completely back to business as usual.

Well done, Tone - seen below striding in on Day One, accompanied by Lucy Adams. On the right, the Duchess of Cambridge. Who wasn't there.

.

Spread

As the pursuit of Piers Morgan continues (89,000 25-54 year-olds for his Tuesday CNN show) I thought it worth noting that his figures remain better than BBC America, which had an average of 86,000 viewers (all ages) for the first quarter of the year, rising to 107,000 if you count time-shift. This places it at 67 in the Cable TV chart. Drawing up the rear is Al Gore's baby, Current TV, soon to be transformed into Al Jazeera for the States. Current scores an average of 20,000 - below the survey's level of accuracy.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A sense of place

Does it matter where a radio presenter IS ?

Radio Ulster mid-morning host Stephen Nolan presents Monday to Friday; he travels to Salford after the Friday show, for his Friday/Saturday/Sunday night gigs with Radio 5 Live. On Monday mornings, he presents the Northern Ireland show from a studio in Salford, before flying back. That's likely to be how he does the Friday show as well soon, as the trip to Salford comes forward to Thursday, to wrap round Question Time on BBC1.

So, Ulster, he's yours in the flesh Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

First base

Jeff Zucker formally arrived at the helm of CNN in late January - so it would probably be fair to set the first quarter viewing figures of 2013 as his baseline.

In total viewers, CNN was down 22% in primetime compared to Q1 2012. In the lucrative 25 to 54 year-old demographic, CNN was down 31% in primetime. "Piers Morgan Live” was down 2% in total viewers, and 18% in the demo compared to last year.

These are the key figures for Zucker to improve on - total viewers in primetime 590,000 - 174,000 of them from the 25-54 year-old group.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Composed

He bashes stuff out, doesn't he ?  Barely in the building, at 0803, Tony Hall tapped out his first memo to all BBC staff as Director General.

Largely warm-bath stuff, here are the high-scoring words.

Best x 8
Future x 5
Creative x 3
Unique, special, confident, chapter and listening; all x 2.

Digital, only once, and, thankfully, only one journey.

Bake off

I hope the comment piece by Jonathan Meades in The Guardian makes the newspaper "cuts" prepared for new BBC DG Lord (Tony) Hall, presented to him this morning on an Barbar IKEA tray (£5.50) by acting Director of Communications Julian "Telly" Payne.

Mr Meades suggests the biggest problem facing the organisation is the structure that commissions tv. It was Birt who thought that commissioning was the BBC's ultimate skillset, and that assembling the UK's finest minds for the role was all that was required for Auntie's survival, alongside a major News Division. Meades' analysis: Channel controllers at the BBC enjoy an increasing autonomy that has resulted in decreasing diversity. The deluge of gardening programmes on BBC2 a few years ago was caused by the then controller's solipsistic assumption that the channel's audience was as entranced by the sod and the trowel as she was.

The current group are in no doubt about their own abilities; a light reading of BBC press releases from (Tele)Vision over the past year accompanies every new commission with trumpets of "impact" "innovation" and "culture". In the move to Broadcasting House, they wailed and moaned about having to live life like the rest, with lockers and meeting rooms - until their area was upgraded from IKEA to Sanderson Hotel. And yet - BBC2 HD's first programme was "Homes Under The Hammer".  BBC1 is still sneaking out Richard Hammond's Secret Service at lunchtimes. BBC2 for Easter brought us Les Dennis and Keith Chegwin. Less than a third of BBC4's programmes are first run.

Mr Meades goes on. The way in which the licence fee, nothing more or less than a poll tax, is divvied up between channels demands urgent overhaul. There is no reason why a channel that drools out light "entertainment" should receive a disproportionately hefty slice simply because it has always done so. It is within the power of the director general to overturn this inverted order. 

Why are former footballers like Alan Hansen and the one who looks like a porky hairdresser paid more than Jeremy Paxman, the most authoritative broadcast journalist in Britain? Is it because they invent new units of measurement – "half a yard" – or model provincial disco clothes, or talk drivel about "role models"? 

...... The fear of seriousness, and the assumption that seriousness is necessarily humourless, has to be overcome. There are manifold audiences. There is no evidence that the majority are as dull and backward as the BBC assumes them to be. The diet of gruesome "reality TV" (there is no such thing) and witless "lifestyle" shows is corrupting – it is a betrayal of the British. And I mean that.

Monday, April 1, 2013

All ears

The Telegraph says Lord (Tony) Hall is going on tour, before taking decisive action at the BBC.

A source close to the new director-general said: “He is very interested to hear the views of the public, about how they feel the BBC is working. It may be through talking to people, it may be in the emails he receives. Pretty much every conversation he has is going to be about the BBC. He is not coming in with a pre-formed vision. He wants us to have a sense of where the BBC should be in ten years time - is technology the central question, or is creativity the central question, or is it news?

A tour is a tradition for a new DG, and the listening is symbolic.




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