Help wanted

I thought that, in the modern world of human resources, everyone had to know a bit about change, why it mattered and how to achieve it. It appears, at the BBC, even the HR team has to have someone to get the message across to the HR team - they've created a new post called "Head of Internal & Change Communication".

It's hard to establish how big the BBC HR and training operation is on its own now, but the salaries of the seven people with personnel and training functions disclosed online add up to over £1.3m. And that doesn't include the pay of Clare Lucraft, appointed Head of Internal Communications in August last year. She comes via King's College, Cambridge (Economics and Social & Political Science) Insead (MBA) Hill & Knowlton, Verizon and Cadbury Schweppes.

Economical

As part of my mission to create a wider and deeper understanding of the economics of blogging, I thought I'd share my Amazon ad earnings from the past six months.

1 copy of James Harding's Alpha Dogs: How Political Spin Became a Global Business sold, at 34p - my share 2p
1 pair of Jvc Haeb75s Sports Ear Clip Headphones with Adjustable Clip - Silver sold, at £4.42 - my share 22p
1 copy of Malcolm Brabant's e-book, Malcolm is a little unwell at £6.50 - my share 33p
2 copies Alex Comfort's Anxiety Makers (Modern Society S.) total £3.60 - my take 18p
1 copy of Sue Gee's short stories, Last Fling (Salt Modern Fiction) at 1p  - my take 0p
1 copy of Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris at £2.18 - I got 11p
1 copy of Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson, at 43p - 2p to me
1 copy of the Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening, £12.95 - 65p to me
1 packet of Plasticine (eight colours) at £1.79 - 9p to me

Since I started with Amazon, I have accumulated an unpaid balance of £2.52. They pay out when you reach £25. Perhaps some of my salaried readers in various newspapers - you know who you are - would like to do more of their shopping via this blog...

Custodians

The BARB figures for first-time viewing in the third week of July show another win for Channel 5 (4.6%) over Channel 4 (4.4%).  It nudges back in C4's favour when you add +1 - 5.1% plays 5.0%.

One man who'll be watching performance is Mark Price of Waitrose, who steps up from non-executive director of C4 to deputy chairman, filling the gap left by Tony Hall. Earlier this week Mark  - a John Lewis lifer - added JL deputy chairmanship to his cv.

Added to the non-executive roster at C4 is Professor Stewart Purvis, ex ITN and Ofcom, ex BBC newstrainee and entertaining blogger.

Oldies but...

I may have been closer to home than I thought, when talking about the new Radio 2 jingles. There's the chill wind of systematic change whistling through the lift shafts of Western House.

David Jacobs is retiring, and now Gillian Reynolds reports that Russell Davies is losing his "song" show on a Sunday night. Others, whose shows feature, predominantly, music from before 1960 must be twitching.

Controller Bob Shennan (51) has delivered Britain's "most listened to" station with a pretty consistent approach to "diversity". Post-Beatles nostalgia in the evenings is delivered by Dave Pearce (50) covering disco; Trevor Nelson (49) covering soul; Steve Lamacq (47) covering rock; David Rodigan (62) covering reggae; Mark Radcliffe (55) covering folk and odd album tracks; and Huey Morgan (44) covering 70s Americana.  Desmond Carrington (87), Nigel Ogden (The Organist Entertains) Tim Rice (68) and Elaine Paige (65) must more than slightly anxious that they're heading for Shennan's version of the "Carrousel" featured in Logan's Run. I suspect Brian Matthews (84) will go on as long as he wants - his speciality is, after all, The Sound of the 60s.

The charge for Radio 2 is "to be a distinctive mixed music and speech service, targeted at a broad audience, appealing to all age groups over 35."  The average age delivered has been stable at 51 over the past two years. The latest Radio commissioning documents assert "Our specialist music offering is key to our broad and distinctive schedule".  It invites submissions for a new presenter-led "genre" show - "reggae, rock’n’roll, latin, new wave, world, rock, gospel or classical. Please do suggest other genres that you feel have a place on the network and would appeal to our audience."

Lovers of the song "stylists" who brought us the early forms of easy listening - great composers, lyricists, performers - are increasingly poorly served by the BBC. BBC local radio, through cuts made in the evening and at weekends, has lost the services of a generation of committed semi-professional hosts covering music from before 1960. 10 million people in the UK were born before 1948.  5 million are over 75 (a figure expected to double in the next thirty years). 20% of those over 75 have problems with their sight. Give them something they like to listen to.  It worked for Rod Stewart (68) after all.

Money talks

If you're reading this in 5Live, here's a useful FOI factoid ahead of appraisal/salary review. The median pay of a Broadcast Journalist (Band 7/7L - minimum £20,077k, max £43,063, outside London) is £29,747. The median pay of a Senior Broadcast Journalist (Band 8/9 - min £30,999, max £55,560, outside London) is £41,729k. Come on, you KNOW you're better than average - get out there and NEGOTIATE.

Uniform

The BBC Trust says Countryfile broke guidelines on Product Prominence, when two presenters wore the same branded clothing - RAB - in two editions in November and December.

Twitter indicates some of the presenters love clothes.

@cress2s the orange one will never retire! watch out for it in Gloucestershire in a couple of weeks. #tangoglow
— Julia Bradbury (@JuliaBradbury) November 19, 2012

Mrs T ?

Not long now til the arrival of the BBC's new Saturday night banker - "That Puppet Game Show" - The Muppets play party games with UK celebs for charidee. The video teasers have concentrated on puppet host Dougie Colon, and his resemblance to Vernon Kaye, who is apparently human. The voice is an uncomfortable amalgam of Vernon and Peter Kay.

More interesting is the voice of Jemima Taptackle, on the left below. To me it has echoes of Steve Nallon, interpreter of Mrs Thatcher for Spitting Image... Will it still run in election year ?

High

The Editors (on BBC1 and "BBC World News, available in 200 countries and territories worldwide, and on selected British Airways flights") has given John Simpson a berth he seems happy with. Last night he was in Beijing, for an interview with the Chinese Foreign Minister. Eight minutes lead item - not unreasonable, out of 29 minutes total. Conclusion - China wants to realise the "Chinese dream", through a "win win" relationship

with the West. The regular demonstration of John's erudition was there - notebook shots are house-style.

And how many of those notes end up in British Airways Highlife magazine? This month's column from John devotes 765 words out of 996 to the difficulties of - filming an introduction to "The Editors" in Washington.

Smile, darn ya

Britain's most dispiriting soap, East Enders has a new boss. Dominic Treadwell Collins, 35, is returning to Elstree, where he used to be in charge of storylines, after a break of three years with indie Lovely Day.

We note his cv talks about "studying English literature at Oxford University", but haven't yet been able to track down his degree or college. More importantly, he grew up near the East Enders set and talks about dreaming of working there as a child. His first tv job was "coming up with different ways to kill people" for Midsomer Murders.

Judging by his Twitter account, whatever happens on screen, there'll at least be a little more joie de vivre behind the scenes from now on.

Tootling

The Commons Public Accounts Committee may like to note that former BBC DG Mark Thompson will be back in blighty on Friday 6th September, giving a lecture (titter not) entitled "Paying the piper".

Mark returns to Oxford for the Reuters Memorial Lecture 2013 - the subtitle is "Re-thinking the economics of newspaper journalism". The next morning he's part of a plenary panel on "The future of journalism", alongside Peter Barron (ex BBC Newsnight, now Google), Nic Newman (ex BBC News Online), John Stackhouse of Canada's Globe and Mail, and Natalie Nougayrede of Le Monde. The session is chaired by David Levy, (ex BBC radio producer and Newsnight reporter, BBC Controller of Public Affairs up to 2007).

Identity crisis

An exciting time of the year: refreshed jingles for Radio 2. It's a bit like university exam results; presenters scrutinise the list in scrums in the majestic, if constrained, hallways of Western House, hoping to see they've still got one.

Once again, the BBC Concert Orchestra have played their part - and the eagle-eyed will notice some celebrities joining in the fun.. see below.

Behind you

Starting the silly season early - where are our faves in panto this year ?  Two breakthrough artists - Gok Wan is making his debut as The Man in The Mirror, in Snow White at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Jo Brand will be be the Genie of The Ring in Aladdin at Wimbledon.

East Enders scriptwriters will be making creative storyline space for Ian Beale/Adam Woodyatt, in Peter Pan, Crewe, and Shane Richie/Shane Richie in Cinderella, High Wycombe. Shane Richie Jr is playing Buttons in Hayes.

Craig Revel Horwood is once again giving his Wicked Queen, this time in Southend, and without the support of Ann Widdecombe. Jimmy Osmond returns to Swansea as Captain Hook in Peter Pan. David Hasselhoff offers an alternative intepretation of the role in Nottingham.

We await news of castings in Hastings, Llandudno, and Northampton - may the producers have more success in their signings than Arsene Wenger....

Flannels

In minor cricket news, today sees the regular Piers Morgan X1 fixture versus Newick CC. Play starts at 2pm - with a result expected well before the rain forecast for 8pm. Piers has already been in training with the odd pint of Harveys from the Royal Oak.

BBC House Organ Ariel led on a minor cricket fixture last week - a James Purnell scratch BBC team versus Channel 4, under Dan Brooke. The match was played on Wednesday at Highgate, but Ariel and Twitter both lack news of a result. Channel 4 could do with any result this summer...

Not so sunny

How do you make a second series even better ? Try not to get cancelled. The crew making "What Happens in Kavos" have been flown home from Corfu, after production notes were found in a restaurant, photocopied and distributed by British holiday workers fed up with the programme's methods.

Here's the launch announcement from Channel 4... .

Series Two will delve deeper into the lives of these young holiday making Brits who want hardcore hedonism on a budget. Once again, there'll be round-the-clock access to the bars and clubs that line the strip, the infamous booze cruises and to the health professionals who pick up the pieces when things go horribly wrong. Like last time the material will be peppered with intimate and revelatory interviews with the holiday makers, young workers and the locals. 

The series has been commissioned by Head of Factual Entertainment, Liam Humphreys and Commissioning Editor, Tina Flintoff. The production company is Dragonfly and the Executive Producer is Tamara Abood, Dragonfly's Head of Factual Entertainment. Filming will be during the summer of 2013 and the series is set to go out in 2014. 

Simon Dickson, Managing Director at Dragonfly said: "A lot of late nights went in to producing 'What Happened In Kavos' so everyone at Dragonfly was delighted when it performed so well. The C4 Fact Ent team were great to work with, they really encouraged us to bring a fresh perspective to the well-worn territory of ' young Brits on holiday. Together, we've created a show that we think manages to be simultaneously eye-popping and classy". 

Commissioning Editor Tina Flintoff said; "I'm delighted we're commissioning a second series of What Happens in Kavos.... The show has caught the imagination of our core audience of 16-34 year olds and has generated an interesting debate about the lives and loves of young Brits who seem to be seeking more extreme ways to keep themselves entertained than ever before''.

And here's the document that pulled everything. Click to go large.

Dragonfly is part of the Shine Group, chaired by Elisabeth Murdoch. Tamara Abood was hired by Dragonfly in September last year. MD Sanjay Singhal said "She has solid journalistic credibility and a fantastic instinct for attention-grabbing television. I’m very excited about the prospect of working with her.”

There may be more to come: Channel 4 and Dragonfly seems to be working on a similar offering from Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. Again, click to go large. Are you celebrating the end of your exams by busting out your bikini ? [sic]

A wicked month

My memory of Augusts at the BBC is hazy, but you never really expected to have much interference from the "suits", who would be, by and large, in Tuscany. It seems this year is different. Lord Hall and Lucy Adams will be meeting the unions over pay on August 13th - (we're only up to Prom 41 by then, for heaven's sake, out of 75). The unions have an "embargoed" ballot result in their back pocket, and will be looking, at the very least, for any severance payments handed back to be re-distributed amongst the lower grades.

The month progresses through the start of the Premier League on 17th August (will Match of the Day change format, in this, it's 49th season?) to the Edinburgh TV Festival on 22nd August.

There, cheeky Neil Midgely is producing a panel session entitled "Tony Hall's Big Decisions". Chaired by John Sergeant, it will feature former Newsnight reporter Liz MacKean, NUJ leader Michelle Stanistreet, and Tory MP (and member of the Culture Select Committee) Conor Burns. Presumably championing the Hall

view is BBC pensioner, presenter and Creative Director Alan Yentob. Good luck.

Thinking time

In our continuing series, we present the BBC's Razia Iqbal in contemplative mood ahead of receiving her honorary degree from the University of East Anglia...

Aim

There's a clear focus on senior managers in the BBC's new diversity targets, revealed in the Annual Report. The old target for "Black and Minority Ethnic" managers, set under Mark Thompson, was 7%, to be reached by December 2012. That was missed, by 0.1%.  The new target, to be reached by the end of 2017 is 10% (of the "wider senior leadership group").  Recent departures include Zarin Patel, Pat Younge and Sanjay Nazerali...

The disabled target for all staff was 5.5% by December 2012, and as this blog has been pointing out, that was a bigger miss - 3.8% achieved. So the overall target for 2017 has actually been lowered, to 5.4% - but the stretch is for senior managers - 10% of that "senior leadership group" - from a current base of around 3.2%.  

Clearance for Clarence

Former BBC reporter and McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell is to be the Tory candidate for Brighton Pavilion at the next election.

Clarence started in journalism in 1982 as a trainee reporter on the Hendon, Finchley, Potters Bar and Barnet Times Group - local MP Margaret Thatcher.  "To see the Prime Minister sweep into the office with Special Branch while you are writing up the latest golden wedding is quite an experience."

Four years later, Clarence joined the BBC, first as a reporter on Radio Sheffield, then as a regional reporter in Leeds. He moved to London, covering Jill Dando, Fred West, Millie Dowler, the Royal beat, and occasionally presenting. The like of his rather sculptured and dramatic hairline in the early days of News 24 hadn't been seen on screen since the days of the bouffant Michael Cole.

In 2005 he moved to the Cabinet Office to run the (Labour) Government's Media Monitoring operation. In 2007 he was seconded from the FCO to be part of the consular team supporting the McCann family - and he is their spokesman to this day.

In 2010 he ran media monitoring for the Tory election campaign. Currently he's Managing Director of UK Public Affairs for spinners Burson Marsteller. He's not hidden his blue colours on his Twitter account - "Likes the media, Tory Party, F1, Triumph sports cars, photography and Chelsea FC".

• Clarence saw off two shortlisted rivals. Michelle Lowe, a marketing communications specialist and the deputy leader of Sevenoaks District Council - and solicitor Jean-Paul Floru, also a Westminster City Councillor. He is the author of "What the Immigrant Saw", a book looking at Britain through the eyes of an immigrant from Belgium.

Logan's run

Missed, amongst other University honours for BBC types, Leeds Trinity University installing Gabby Logan as their first Chancellor...

Capped

This blog has always liked a little dressing up, and whatever the rest of you think of Auntie, the UK's universities still love her. Here are some of this year's honorary degrees - costumes by Russell Grant, out of Rubovia.

I'm missing a few, so if anyone has undeveloped film of the following be-gowned, get in touch.

Carolyn Quinn, Honorary Doctorate, University of Kent.
James Landale, Honorary Doctor of Laws, Bristol University.
Paul Lewis (Money Box and Breakfast), Honorary Degree, University of Essex
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, Doctor of Letters, University of Birmingham

Off Pat

Pat Younge, Chief Creative Officer of BBC Vision Productions (and blog-subscriber), is moving on. He took up the job in January 2010 - at this stage, it's not clear if this is a redundancy.

Pat started out as a researcher on LWT's London Programme in 1991. At BBC current affairs, he created Black Britain, and produced Here and Now. He moved to multicultural commissioner at C4, then came back to Auntie to review in-house production. Then followed four years as Head of Programmes and Planning for BBC Sport. He travelled to the States in 2005, to become President and General Manager of The Travel Channel - and came back in 2009.

In 2008, he told the Edinburgh TV Festival "One of the things I've learned in America from running a business is accountability. If I don't hit my business plan I'll get fired. Why shouldn't the same apply for executives who fail to hit their ethnic minority targets?"  It's a problem he's just increased for Lord Hall and Danny Cohen....

Trail trouble

Ben Webster, The Times media editor, is certainly not coasting ahead of a return to the environment brief. This morning he has news of a £500k severance payment made to Peter Fincham, when he was Controller of BBC1, and got caught up in the abysmally-cut trail for the documentary "A Year With The Queen".

The film was made by indie RDF, who messed with time in the trail, which then clearly gave the impression that Her Majesty left an Annie Liebovitz photo-session grumpy. Peter showed the trail to the press in July, saying she'd "walked out in a huff". Thus it became a news item - and, though people inside the BBC knew things were wrong by 7pm that evening, the apology and correction came after it was still running on morning bulletins.

The sledgehammer nut-cracking services of Will Wyatt were comissioned for a report. Fincham (and Stephen Lambert of RDF) resigned. Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision - Fincham's boss - was criticised for "displaying a lack of curiosity", but survived.

The payment, presumably made in October 2007, doesn't feature in the Annual Report 2007/8 - nor does "Fincham" or "The Queen". Mark Thompson was DG, Zarin Patel was Group Finance Director, Caroline Thomson Chief Operating Officer and HR was under the care of Stephen Kelly. The recent NAO report covers BBC severance payments from January 2010 to December 2012.

Dongling

The BBC's "Connected TV" website will soon need an overhaul, thanks to another nifty market move by Google. The Google Chromecast dongle was launched yesterday in the States - capital cost $35 dollars (around £23 until the GDP forecasts come out), running cost $0 (£0). You simply plug it into a spare HDMI socket on your big telly, and your Android device - computer, tablet, phone - drives what you see on the screen - Youtube, Netflix, iPlayer etc...

Now you see it ...

Transparent - or just veneered ?

From a BBC job ad for a tour guide to join the team "taking MPs and Brownies" round Broadcasting House: "The tours department falls within BBC Media Engagement, which is part of Marketing and Audiences and has a key role to play in making the BBC appear more open and accessible." My italics.

Market conditions

BBC Scotland is recruiting 15 researchers on one-year contracts to help with referendum coverage. It's billed as a journalism training scheme, with "a chance to learn on the job". "There is no guarantee of a job at the end of the training but we will do our best to help you find one".

This will sit uncomfortably with journalists who've been made redundant over past year. Overall, BBC Scotland will lose around 120 jobs under cuts required by "Delivering Quality First" - around one in ten of the workforce.

Fatigue

It remains hard to decode much from the minutes of the new BBC Executive. There are still bits which are transparent - take this, for example, with non-executive director Simon Burke, a qualified accountant and chair of the Audit Committee, flexing his governance pectorals on the Annual Report: "The Committee had been keen to ensure that the challenges of the last year were accurately reflected and the Chief Financial Officer’s report had been amended accordingly".  A little later CFO Zarin Patel left the meeting, her last in post, having participated by video ahead of a kicking by the Public Accounts Committee.

Then, gnomically, in the next item - World Service Annual Review - we get "Peter Horrocks also updated the Board on a couple of other matters". So that's pretty open.

Later, there's discussion of the need to align the cuts required by "Delivering Quality First" with James Purnell's Strategy Review, due to come back to the Executive in September. No mention of the McKinsey work on "simplification", but an exhortation: "The Board noted the potential for ‘change fatigue’ amongst staff and the need to take this into account when involving staff in the strategy review and communicating key messages". For some, this fatigue has already arrived - other consultancies, including Bain's and the Boston Consulting Group, are said to be frantically interviewing middle managers for ideas before the villas in Tuscany beckon.

Lower down the chain, fatigue has hit Paul Moss, a reporter on the World Tonight. He has stuck his weary head above a dangerous and exposed parapet with a letter to the staff organ, Ariel, thus...

As a BBC journalist, I should really be capable of writing analytical and in-depth prose. But I am sitting here thinking of the BBC management who took all that money meant for programme-making and instead lavished it on each other's farewell hand-outs. 

And I'm thinking of how we have all been left to scrimp and save to fund the work we do, and how the BBC's reputation has plummeted in the wake of the pay-out revelations. 

And I find myself unable to write anything except 'B*****d, b*****d, b*****d, b*****d, b******s'.

Daddy

It's not often you get figures you can compare across broadcasting and newspaper websites. The Daily Mail claimed its highest ever daily traffic figures on Monday -10.57 million unique users worldwide came for the Royal baby wait. The BBC put its daily figure for Monday at 19.4m.  CNN.com have claimed "more than 12 million".

3.798836082 kilograms

The media triumph for the Royal Family is keeping news of the little erk's arrival quiet from 4.24pm to 8.05pm.

Ed Perkins, Press Secretary to Prince William, is from Pen-y-fai, Bridgend, and went to Bryntirion Comprehensive School. At 17, he completed the maximum three gold runs on Blockbusters. He graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge with a degree in geography, then picked up a Ph.D in epidemiology. On the way he edited the university newspaper, Varsity, and worked weekends at Radio Cambridgeshire.

He began a tv career as a trainee at ITV News, joining the BBC Six O'Clock team in 2002. In 2005, it was back to ITV as an assistant programme editor, thence to The Royal Household as Deputy Press Secretary to The Queen and Head of News in 2007.

In December last year, he was poached for Prince William's team.

To medium close up, and fast

Never mind the bullies - those automated cameras are getting aggressive...

Summer schedules

The tv share figures are in for the second week of July - hotter than the first - and Channel 5 has again beaten Channel 4 - 4.7% plays 4.3%. When you add +1 it's a tie - 5.1% each. But Channel 5 viewers watched on average for five minutes longer.

This new world order may continue till, perhaps, the Media Guardian Edinburgh Television Festival, when Jay Hunt, leader of creative renewal at C4, will explain to terrier Boyd Hilton of Heat Magazine when the new generation of hit shows will be arriving - and who has commissioned them. The word "consternation" has been used to describe the current mood at Horseferry Road.

The Edinburgh tv event is on August 22.  On September 30, John McCririck's tribunal hearing against his dismissal from C4 Racing begins - seven days of evidence have been pencilled in, with witness including Jay Hunt.

Get ambidextrous, or...

I am, I confess, not always ahead of the game. The Mail's story that the lead partner from McKinsey's working on simplifying the BBC is Suzanne Heywood passed me by.

Her c.v. makes her an obvious choice for radical surgery to Blubbery Auntie. She studied zoology at Oxford and Cambridge, with a touch of psychology thrown in; she was a "principal" in the 90s at HM Treasury (it was there she met and married Jeremy Heywood, now Sir, and Cabinet Secretary); and she is on the board of the Royal Opera House.

The McKinsey website offers snippets of Lady Suzanne's insights. This caught my eye.

Whenever companies tackle complexity, they will ultimately find some individuals who seem less troubled by it than others. This is not surprising. People are different: some freeze like deer in the headlights in the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, complex roles, and unclear accountabilities; others are able to get their work done regardless. Companies need to locate the pockets of individual strength and weakness in order to respond intelligently. Although some people can deal with complexity innately, we now know that others can be trained to develop what we call “ambidextrous” capabilities—the ability to tolerate ambiguity and actively manage complexity. Such skills will enable employees to create and use networks within organizations to build relationships and help overcome poor processes, bridge organizational silos, or manage whatever value-creating pockets of complexity their companies decide to maintain. 

I am also off the pace on Steve Hewlett's revelation that Godric Smith may be helping Lord Hall with comms. Godric was educated at Cambridge and Oxford (The Perse School and Worcester), and has spun for various wings of government for 22 years - he worked for three Prime Ministers at Downing Street for over 10 years between 1996 and 2012. He was Tony Blair's Official Spokesman from 2001–04 and his Head of Strategic Communications from 2004–06. He was Director of Communications for London 2012 for the Olympic Delivery Authority and the Government from 2006–12. Godric has now set up a boutique strategy and marketing operation with Olympic chum, Greg Nugent - whose previous employers include Eurostar and The Prince Of Wales. Did we mention that Lord Hall chaired the Cultural Olympiad ?

Signalling

Weekends can be troublesome in big newsrooms. As the Studio 54 camera swept through the disco-balls of the BBC HQ last night, majestically zooming towards the Weekend News at Ten with Clive Myrie, a hand was clearly waved towards the audience. It seemed a cheery wave, rather than a call for a paramedic - perhaps indicating to a loved one at home that a shift was nearly ending. I'll try to find out more...

Deadly accuracy

It's attention to detail, especially on BBC stories, that makes the Mail what it is...

Springer

Ma Hodge has the scent of big BBC blood and a lust for a kangaroo court, it seems. There may not be enough chairs for her next Public Accounts Committee - The Non-Contractual Severance Payment Public Hanging Session, Editor's Cut - with ex-DG Mark Thompson, ex-senior non-exec Marcus Agius already "invited".  Presumably Antony Fry will be there again, as will Lucy Adams - and surely ex-chair Sir Michael Lyons will eventually want to make his case ? Now there's talk of Mark Byford and Caroline Thomson getting the black-edged invites; will Pat Loughrey be far behind ?

Seven or eight in the front row is unprecedented; it could turn out like a Jerry Springer families-at-war special. Ma Hodge, a tad disingenuously, tells the Guardian ""I don't want scalps. What I want is to get at the truth, and I'm fed up with them all blaming each other. I'm going to get them all in front of the committee together because I can't think of any other way of successfully finding out who was responsible for making those crass decisions. Then those responsible will have to think about their positions."

Expect some Murdoch-style letters of atonement before we get there...

Tool

I find the term "breaking news" one of the most exasperating of our times. It's either news - or it isn't.

Nonetheless, I have sympathy with the hacks who have to tap out those first lines to announce a new story. Apparently, in the BBC, to deliver those words to "all platforms" could take five minutes. Now they have a Breaking News Tool - which reduces the time taken to two minutes. Still looks terrifying to me. Ideally, I'd like to see a spell-check button flashing big time...

Hot

The aftermath of the George Zimmerman acquittal has been great for CNN - and Piers Morgan. Monday's interview with Travvon Martin's friend, and chief prosecution witness, Rachel Jeantel, won him the top cable news rating of the day (25-54 year-olds), at 678k.  And on Thursday, Piers rowed with right-wing talk radio host Larry Elder about the case - 364k viewers - again, cock of the walk.

Heat

It seems Channel 4's figures are taking a bigger hit than most from the warm weather. BARB's public ratings for the first week of July show 4's share of audience falling behind Channel 5 - 3.8% plays 4.0%.

If you add in +1 viewing, C4 comes back - 4.5% plays 4.3%.

On Thursday of this week, all day ratings for C4 delivered a 4.1% share - with Channel 5 hitting 4.9%.

Nominees

What stands between Alan Yentob and an Emmy for "Outstanding Variety Special" ? "Mel Brooks Strikes Back!" with Mel Brooks and Alan Yentob, made by Brooksfilms for HBO, is up against four other nominees.

The Kennedy Center Honors is a sort of upmarket annual "roast" of celebs, broadcast this year by CBS, and featuring David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman, Natalia Makarova, Buddy Guy and Led Zeppelin - with Mr and Mrs Obama part of the audience.

Louis C.K.: Oh My God is another HBO show. Stand-up comedian Louis (Szekely), 45, live for an hour in Phoenix, Arizona.

Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (Part One), from NBC, made by Broadway Video in association with Universal Television, is probably the shortest entry - run-time just 22 minutes.

12-12-12: The Concert For Sandy Relief, at Madison Square Garden, was broadcast worldwide, and featurred Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney. Produced by Clear Channel and Harvey Weinstein, it's got to be favourite.

Brand management

Consistent isn't one of the words you'd use in describing the BBC's relationship with Jeremy Clarkson. In 2006, he formed a company with Top Gear producer (and fellow Old Reptonian) Andy Wilman, called Bedder 6, to exploit the "Top Gear" brand. Braver souls might have argued he had no such right - Top Gear, a programme about cars, was a BBC creation from way back in 1977.  It was canned in 2001, but Wilman and Clarkson pitched the idea of a one-hour format, and lo, a programme about cars was back on screen in 2002.

By 2006, Clarkson and Wilman had noted that there were 200,000 people on the waiting list to stand in a shed watching the show being recorded. The BBC was spooked by Bedder's ambitions, and possibly, Clarkson's negotiating style - and, in 2007 for a nominal investment of £100, got half the shares, plus one. But they also surrendered merchandising, some foreign sales rights and the production of stadium shows to the company - a major, unprecedented concession. And put nearly £1m into the show's production budget.

In the first full year of this new partnership, Clarkson benefited from a £200k dividend and a £117,000 payment for services, on top of his BBC presentation fee. Fast forward to 2011, and Clarkson enjoyed a £2.7m dividend, a £350k payment for services, again on top of a BBC fee.

Over the past financial year, BBC Worldwide struck a deal to buy back what they had surrendered, and moved to take complete ownership of Bedder 6. It required a total payment of £16.2m - BBC Worldwide's share of Bedder dividends over 5 years is estimated at £17m.  So, in bald terms, and taking into account the £1m ploughed into production back in 2007, CEO John Smith's deal with Clarkson and Wilman made a cash loss over the time from one of his "top brands". Though the BBC has its asset back.

Meanwhile, £8.4m of that buy-back price went to Clarkson, on top of a dividend of £4.86m, plus payment for services (and, of course, BBC performance fee).

Clarkson and Wilman had resigned as directors of Bedder in September, as a new three-year deal was announced which may bring more benefits to fellow presenters James May and Richard Hammond. The BBC is believed to have guaranteed Clarkson a £500k presentation fee for the next three years. We are not privy to the sums the presenters will be paid for "promoting the show worldwide".

Remind me again about John Smith's bonus payments...

Way back

Learned readers have pointed out that John Birt was not the first in the BBC to turn to consultants McKinsey for advice. In 1967, Harold Wilson appointed Lord Hill, no friend of the BBC thanks to skirmishes over his role as "The Radio Doctor" and Suez, as chairman, to "sort out" the Corporation.

A year later Hill invited in McKinsey, to look at "structure and functioning of the BBC". Stuart Hood, a former Controller of BBC tv wrote a column in the Spectator at the time, commenting, perhaps rather partially, about the aspirations of the staff at the time...

What they hope for, on the television side, is that the television service will be more certainly master of its own destinies and its own economy; but this they feel, cannot be achieved without an assault on what is seen as the central fortress—Broadcasting House, where the central administration and its ancillary services are firmly lodged. Will the managing director of television, they wonder, be able to take decisions or will he be bound—as so often in the past—by decisions which may be relevant to radio but are inapplicable to the operation of running a television station ?

...Radio has remained an archaic structure within which, here and there, patches of professionalism and initiative force their way through the undergrowth. The organisation is top-heavy. There are too many departmental heads who are frustrated and soured and whose effect on programmes is therefore inhibiting. The time spent on meetings and on keeping in touch is out of all proportion to what emerges from them. The lines of command need to be defined afresh and old frontiers broken down. 

Lord Hill's move was also remarked upon by Lord Reith, in a letter to his buddie Jack Maclay aka Lord Muirshiel. Already fuming at Lord Hill's appointment as chairman, he described the consultants as "that terrible McKinsey firm".

See through

There's an old joke from the days when John Birt was running the BBC: “What’s the difference between ET and McKinsey? At least ET went home in the end.”

Well. they're back. The BBC is at pains to make clear that they've won a competitive tender to supply "insight" on simplifying the organisation, at a cost estimated at between £300k and £500k. This may not go far, with offices in Jermyn Street to support.

Here's a free "insight". Last year Marks and Spencer recruited 20,000 temporary staff (about the headcount of the BBC) in the UK and Ireland to work over Christmas and the New Year. I suspect no additional "boards" were created.

• McKinsey were believed to be the creators of this chart, attempting to create a diagram of responsibilities for Newsnight in its dark days.

Bits

Portfolio post: all lightweight stuff.

Reading between the lines (cos you have to) I'm guessing the BBC will be paying a total of £140m a year for football, adding up its current League deal, and the new FA Cup move. On top of what BBC Alba pays for Scottish Premier League games.

How will Lord Hall handle Maria Miller's call for action against John Inverdale for his boorish comments about Marion Bartoli ?  The Byford answer would have been a training course. And it's a solution he's left in the Corporation's DNA, with courses still to come to make sure BBC suppliers fully embrace the "values" and "respect" at work....

Speaking of genetics, Lord Hall has told the Radio Times that music should be the DNA of the BBC. This probably doesn't mean a return for Top of the Pops, but, with "arts, culture and Shakespeare" flowing from Tone's lips, on top of soccer deals, Anne Bulford must be furrowing her brows a little and examining the war-chest.

On the music front, if publicists are allowed, in school holidays, to announce that celebs like Miley Cyrus are visiting Radio 1, then they should pay for security needed for crowd control in the Entwistle piazza at Broadcasting House. Or perhaps it's a move by Ben Cooper to drive up waning interest in breakfast host Nick Grimshaw - if that's so, then Ben should pay.

Staying upbeat, Peter Salmon revealed details of the annual staff survey of BBC North employees yesterday. Earlier this year we were told they are "much happier" than other BBC staffers. Now, 53% feel management communications at BBC North are open and honest. Oh for a trend report - and a comparison with the rest of the Corporation.

We note this morning that Dr Leah Totton, ready to inject a willing nation with botulinum toxin after her Apprentice win, will also be offering a skincare range - presumably because Apprentice 2012 losing finalist Susan Ma is making Siralan big bucks with Tropic Skin Care, and there's a business model in place. And Siralan clearly remembers with joy the money his apprentices made selling fake-tan in Essex back in May 2012.

Term

Lord Patten confirmed yesterday that he's not seeking a second term as BBC Chairman. Four years will put him behind Sir Michael Lyons, in terms of post-war post-holders. Leading the league table is Duke Hussey (ten years), and Lord Hill of Luton and Sir Michael Swann, both on six years, with Sir Arthur fforde on five.

The four years will be "up" in May 2015 - just before Lord Patten's 71st birthday - though there may be a need for some extension, if we're in an election campaign. He says he's going to write books  - some available on your right - but not about his time at the BBC. Which is a shame, because it'd be a hoot, and an undoubted bestseller.

Now, the enjoyment of the next couple of years relies on the next appointment - can Chris find a congenial, confident, common-sense businessman to replace Anthony Fry as Trustee-money-minder and share a glass of good red ?

See you Jimmy ?

Odds on Julian Payne to be made permanent as the BBC's Director of Communications must have shortened overnight - the move to annouce Mishal Husain as a Today presenter, on the day of the corporation's most embarassing Annual Report, delivered Guardian, Telegraph and Independent front page pictures of our heroine.

Sadly, in Scotland, no such coverage for Jim Naughtie, who'll be presenting Good Morning Scotland two days a week in referendum year (which makes space for Mishal). Jim says he's "thrilled" (he has a house in Edinburgh), but makes it clear he'll be back presenting Today full-time before the UK election in 2015. Gary Robertson, current five-day-a-week host of GMS, is giving nothing away on Twitter - though presumably he'll have to add Jim to the photo on the account.

Use it or lose it

Cost per user/hour is a blunt tool in judging BBC success - but it's fun.

My chums at the Gaelic TV service, BBC Alba, entering its fifth year, look to have had a grand 2012/3 - in BBC terms, their cost per user/hour has tumbled from 22.0p to 7.4p. This is judged on a BBC content spend of £4.9m - though the channel's total costs are £15m (and it's getting an extra £1m direct from nervous Danny Alexander this year). The audience figures are collated by TNS Scottish Opinion Survey, not BARB - their estimate is weekly reach is up from 436,000 to 637,000. They've undoubtedly been helped by the move which kicks much of BBC network radio off Freeview at night, to create bandwith for Alba - and a hefty dollop of Scottish football - happily re-transmitted in pubs with the Gaelic commentary turned down.

Sadly, things are going the other way at the BBC Gaelic service on radio (from which Alba sprang). BBC nan Gaidheal is up in cost per user/hour from 12.9p to 15.6p. This puts in second only to BBC Radio Cymru, up from 14.5 to 20p per user hour. The only other service to break into double figures in this measure is CBBC - suffering from the removal of programmes from the BBC1 schedule, and now delivering at 11.1p per user hour. I feel a children's classic serial coming back - say, tea-time Sundays ?

Look this way

Good old BBC - distracting us with sweeties as we try to concentrate on the Annual report. So this was a vital day to announce that Mishal Husain is joining the core Today presentation team, and that the remaining BBC national tv networks are moving to HD.

Meanwhile, in the numbers, the BBC sold 14 acres of development potential in W12 for a profit of just £78m (on a sale price reported previously as £200m). Centre House, just across the road from Television Centre, raised £9.3m.

BBC Studios and Post Production reported a loss - let's hope they've saved up enough money to rebuild the studios at TVC that Top Gear are riding bikes through.  BBC World (the tv news channel) moved back into deficit, largely because of the cost of new studios and technology at Broadcasting House.

The pension fund deficit (a snapshot, not a formal valuation) widened by nearly £540m, to £1,717m.

Most service groups cost less to run in 2012/3 compared with 2011/2 - except Technology, which might have moved in the right direction save for £52m write-offs associated with DMI. Spend on Finance and Operations (under Zarin Patel and some of Caroline Thomson) rose by nearly £11m over the year, to £68m.

We learn that Zarin, who left the Executive Board on 28 June, will actually leave the BBC on 31 October 2013. How does that work ?

We learn that Zarin has stacked up a cash war chest of £575m - they probably don't want to highlight that to staff while they're balloting on pay.

We learn that James Purnell has a close family member employed by the BBC on standard terms and conditions

Peripheral

A bit slow to catch up with this clever piece from Top Gear. Brilliant editing, but shameless continuity. Fans of dodgy off-the-shelf-building systems will notice the bike riding over roof-top offices created out of cream-painted concertina-ed metal - and the rear wheel making the odd dent. These offices were named "The Periphery" - home to Tony Hall and his kitchen cabinet when he was Director of News - and unbearable in any temperature above 22C.

No warning

Just over seven days ago, BBC tv entertainment commissioner Karl Warner was in buoyant mood, describing elements of the upcoming Edinburgh TV Festival to The Guardian.

Warner maintains the BBC's remit is "to be bold and take risks – hoping that the audience forgive us a bit if we get it wrong, and know that overall we'll get it right". There have been reports that he could be soon poached by an indie but he insists he is "genuinely really happy" at the BBC ("I've got my BBC tattoo"). 

Tattooed or not, it's been announced today that Karl is leaving the BBC at Christmas, as Danny Cohen gets on with belated delivery of DQF savings. For those interested in tv games involving string tied to private parts, and chained couples copulating, the whole of the Guardian interview may prove diverting. One part of the Warner legacy will be "sketch show with real people" Boomtown, on BBC3 in August.

Annie Get Your Gun

Big day tomorrow for Anne Bulford, OBE, the BBC's Managing Director of Operations and Finance - the BBC's Annual Report is out, and with Zarin Patel and Caroline Thomson gone, she'll have to sit alongside Tony Hall and explain things.

Tony gave a hint of big changes to come on her patch, when he told the Public Accounts Committee last week that he'd discovered "fifty-five separate boards and committees looking at operations and back office functions". In the past it has been possible to build whole BBC careers on attending meetings which make no decisions; imagine if you had membership, say, of just ten, and they met monthly. Take a day to read in, a day to attend, a couple of leadership briefings, a divisional workshop or two, some sessions on "Lean" projects, a little light business risk and continuity thinking, Fridays working from home - and, bingo, £150k+ a year is yours.

I wonder if the report will publish the full governance structure and meeting membership running DMI...

And relax...

Busy, creatively speaking, at the BBC last week ?

There's nothing like the artistic contacts you can make in Tracey Emin's company. She celebrated her 50th birthday on the French Mediterranean last Thursday - with Gloria Hunniford, Nancy Dell'Olio, Joan Collins, Michael Stipe, Stephen and Assia Webster - and Alan Yentob.

Full gallery in the Tatler, from which this is borrowed...

It continues

The spinning of who said what when, and to whom, in the BBC severance payments row continues, with The Sunday Times claiming Mark Thompson had written to BBC Trustee Antony Fry the day before the Public Accounts Committee, to stress his view that the Trust had been fully informed about "maximum payments" to Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay.

This set me musing on whether or not Ed Williams, UK CEO of Edelman, and former Director of Communications at the BBC, was still helping Thommo on BBC loose ends.

• Sideways research revealed that Ed is Deputy Chairman of the English National Ballet - where former BBC COO Caroline Thomson is Interim CEO, and former BBC Radio spinner, Sue Lynas is Communications Director. 

Bright spark wanted

Fancy a job as Lean Project Manager working for the Lean Hub, London at the BBC ?

Working within the BBC Spark team is a collaborative experience at the forefront of inspiring change across the corporation. The project is driven from the top levels of the BBC and employs co-operative methods with teams across television, radio, online, News and support services teams. The position is part of the BBC Spark team within BBC Policy & Strategy and reports to the Programme Director, BBC Spark.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Employs Lean tool box to drive Lean projects across different areas of the BBC
2. Provides leadership in Lean project management to business areas across the BBC
3. Promotes Lean across the business
4. Provides support for line managers in Divisional areas to assess and redesign internal operations to enable the BBC to maximise value for money for the benefit of the licence fee payer
5. Conducts Lean training
6. Facilitates continuous improvement teams using Lean project management tools
7. Executes, tracks, and takes accountability for continuous improvement savings and results
8. Guides organization in Lean Systems implementation
9. Makes Lists and puts Capitals in funny places. (I made that one up - the others are real)

Apology

In previous posts about severance payments at the BBC, I'd tentatively and wrongly asked whether or not Andy Parfitt, former Controller of BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra, The Asian Network and Controller of Popular Music was one of the Controllers listed in a chart of top ten deals produced by the NAO.

Andy has said categorically it's not him on the list; he did not receive this or any other large lump sum severance figure. Could my newspaper-based readers please note ?

"Scandalous"

The FT has decided that Mark Thompson is largely to blame for non-contractual severance payments at the BBC. (Was FT Editor Lionel Barber ever really a candidate to replace him ?)

The FT discourages clipping, but I'll risk this engaging bit as it's an editorial, and thus debate, not reporting (and, joy of joys, there's a spelling mistake):  During [Thommo's] time at the helm, which straddled the pre-crisis boom, the BBC became notorious for handing out fat salaries to a top-heavy tier of senior managers. This did little for programme quality but cost the BBC dear in terms of public credibility. For Mr Thompson to have sanctioned top-up payments to this overpaid and supernumary [sic] caste is scandalous, even if the Trust approved them as he claims.

The editorial offers solutions, saying the BBC should stop the DG acting as both CEO and Chairman of Executive Board - an external chair, even the chair of The Trust, would be preferable.

It wants more access for the National Audit Office. I think this is a distraction. The NAO would end up with an entire, parallel audit team to keep their fretting minds happy. The BBC books and financial reporting simply need to be delivered in plain English - transparent facts, without the endless gloss of triumph and the need for specialist interpretation to find out what's really going on. Let's see the style of this year's Annual Report, coming on Tuesday. I think things will change next year under Anne Bulford.

And finally the FT wants the Trust "beefed up" or the role handed to Ofcom. The Trust is certainly "beefy" in terms of process - its editorial reviews are more lawyerly than Queen's Bench reports - but it has seemed to lack "savvy" about the business it monitors. When it has got things right - on senior manager numbers, and pay levels in general - whimpering on the sidelines saying they won't do what we tell them is hardly what we want from regulators.

Well done

Congratulations to Paul Royall, elevated from deputy to overall editor of the BBC news bulletins at 6 O'Clock and 10 O'Clock, and described by colleagues as a very good thing. The appointment does not do much for diversity, but at least his university days were spent at Lancaster and Essex.

• Paul's promotion will leave a vacancy for an Executive Producer of The Editors - a monthly set of films hosted by World Affairs Editor, John Simpson.  Perhaps, here at least, a stronger hand is required.  I particularly winced at the June edition, where John turned his majestic brain to the question on the world's lips - why are the French so unhappy ? In search of an answer, he took a stroll from his Paris flat, near the Eiffel Tower, which he visits every six weeks or so, and talked over coffee and lunch to Christian Constant, a tv chef with three restaurants in the Rue St Dominique, and his old university pal, also largely based in Paris, Nicholas Snowman, chairman of jewellery dealers Wartski, and co-editor with John of The Best Of Granta. (Cafe Constant also makes occasional appearances in John's regular columns for BA Highlife - "what the world's most famous correspondent gets up to off duty"). The whole was constructed round a paper by a French sociologist, Claudia Senik, re-worked from November 2011. 

Harding v Harding

That James Harding may not be full-time at the BBC yet, but he's clearly prepared to put himself about a bit. Here's yet another speaking engagement - in conversation with one of my old bosses Phil Harding, at a Media Society session in October.

I note from the blurb that "he leads over 8,000 journalists". When figures were last reported on the combined News division (including World Service and English Regions), under Helen Boaden, it was 9,000. I make that an 11% cut - still some way to go to deliver on the full DQF cuts of 20%.

Nonetheless, I'm thinking of taking odds on Harding, J for next DG.

Transparent

From Fortress Wapping to Greenhouse Southwark. News Corp's London team - News UK, Dow Jones and Harper Collins are moving next summer, to "The Place", Renzo Piano's little handholder for "The Shard". How long before there's a substantial bit of branding on those acres of glass ?

Front row

Whilst most cameras concentrated on friends, family and the Royal Box during breaks in Murray v Djokovic Wimbledon final, some still looked at the players.

Lo, Sophie Raworth (who went to Murray v Federer last year, and donated the ticket price to charity), and yes, Olympic Torch Bearer, former sports rights negotiator and now BBC Director of Operations, Dominic Coles.

Icing

Someone needs to do a little shuttle diplomacy over the weekend, to stop a feud of Dickensian proportions building up at the BBC.

Mark Thompson, former DG, was too busy to come to defend severance deals approved on his watch, in front of the Public Accounts Committee - he might well be attending the "Media Moguls' Summit" in Sun Valley, Idaho - but he clearly found time to catch up with the evidence of Lord Patten and Antony Fry. First came a statement from the New York Times expressing continuing confidence in their CEO; then came quotes from emails from the DG's office back in October 2010, specifically about the deals for Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay (spooky how quickly they were found, when BBC FOI responses talk about the impossibility of such a task being completed in four working days).

Thompson said "I had made sure that the trust were aware of and understood all potentially contentious issues". A spokeswoman for the Trust said the email "did not contain a breakdown of the payments themselves, and no reasonable reading of this correspondence would have concluded that it indicates these individuals were to be given excessive pay in lieu of notice."  The emails are an example of an elaborate sub-governance process at the Corporation - fixers (in this case, Jessica Cecil, for Thommo, and Nicholas Kroll, for The Trust) "squaring off" financial matters before any formal process of approval is reached. We haven't yet heard from Sir Michael Lyons on Byford and Baylay; it can't be long - but iciness between two of Britain's leading lay Roman Catholics, Patten and Thompson, needs urgent thawing.

Will we also hear from Marcus Agius, former senior non-exec at the BBC, chair of the Executive remuneration committee, rubbished as "out-to-lunch" on acceptable pay levels by Antony Fry, Trustee with responsibility for financial control ? Until July 2, Marcus was Chairman of the British Bankers' Association; Antony is chairman of the UK Investment wing of Portuguese bank Espirito Santo. Is this really the way bankers talk about each other ?

Temperature control

There was no problem combating an outside temperature of 23C in Committee Room 15 of the Palace of Westminster yesterday. There was a genuine chill in the room, and no loosened ties, as MPs of the Public Accounts Committee systematically put the boot into the BBC over "non-contractual" severance payments of the past three years. And it also was one of those occasions when words mean much more than their face value.

Lord Patten, finger jabbing, blamed "the Board of Governors which helped to produce the culture". This certainly takes in Lord Grade, and may go back to Gavyn Davies. And then, to correct the situation, "it helps to have a DG you can trust". Later, "I totally trust what the Director General [Tony Hall] is doing". Mark Thompson's current employers, the New York Times took this sort of stuff seriously enough to issue a statement: "Mark continues to have the full support of The New York Times Company board and of his colleagues in management".

Margaret Hodge tossed a trio of failings, over the Entwistle pay-off, DMI and severance deals in general, at the Trust's banker, Antony Fry. Antony explained how the Executive's remuneration committee, chaired by banker Marcus Agius, had been beastly to him. He said he'd been on the receiving end of "particularly unpleasant conversations". He then proceeded to be unpleasant back, describing them as "completely out-to-lunch on what they thought was acceptable in terms of pay levels in public service broadcasting".

After these fusillades, the MPs turned to HR boss, Lucy Adams. As an (unqualified) executive coach, I'd advise Lucy not to start answers with "So..."; to take her glasses right off, rather than shove them on her head, when answering; and, if she's going to apologise for failings, however partially and narrowly, do it early in the proceedings rather than late. Answers about "custom and practice", "prevailing culture", "a certain way of doing things" should not have got through a rehearsal; nor should continual references to costs avoided. Lucy managed to bring in both Caroline Thomson, by name, and Zarin Patel, by job title, before Lord Hall, channeling Lord Sugar, stepped into to her aid, with "It's not just about HR".

Indeed Tony said he and Lucy were doing great work together, scrutinising salaries "down to £75k"; though I did hear the words "over the medium term".

What next ? Well, there's the Annual Report, next Tuesday. There's the challenge from Lord Patten to some of the recipients of "non-contractual" deals to act with "an appropriate level of seemliness". There's still a hunt to track down more names - including the "highly litigious individual" mentioned by Lucy Adams. We need to understand how Mark Byford was unable to take his full leave over seven years. There's a watch on 11 exit deals which bust the incoming £150k cap. There's an Ernst and Young report the PAC want, as well as more details on all 150 big deals. And that should take us to a fabulous session in November, when Mark Thompson has been invited, this time with reasonable notice, to explain how he ran the BBC.

Peerless

Last night's Imagine on BBC1 featured a man in his mid-sixties clearly comfortable with himself. Good with children, happy to share his homes and hospitality with mates and relatives alike, at ease with loyal superstar friends. Graciously acknowledging the inevitable ups and downs of a showbiz career, with a joke and a smile, yet committed to, and driven by, a mission to perform.

And Rod Stewart.

Hospital job

I seem to be drifting away from the world of work, or at least its current jargon.

Take "triage" - I was pretty comfortable with the Oxford Dictionary definition: the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties. 

The BBC is advertising for an "HR Project Lead: Triage".

See you

How are Tony Hall's two Jimmies doing ?

James Harding, Director of News (and Current Affairs) was out facing licence-fee payers again last night, grilled at a Women In Journalism event. First question: Should John Inverdale be sacked for his boorish remarks about Wimbledon winner Marion Bartoli ? "He was wrong, but sackings must be proportionate". Did James get a £1.3m pay-off from The Times ?  Long pause. "No".  Asked about changes to The Times now, "I believed strongly in what we were doing at The Times and some of those things have changed...I have considered cancelling my subscription".

Should The Sun still have Page 3 girls ? "I always thought they should drop it, and I was surprised when they had a window to do it, but didn't". Lyn Faulds-Wood: "I was on screen for 15 years but can't catch a cold now. What are you going to do about old bloke presenters with a bit of totty sitting beside them ? How about swapping the format to a young man and an older woman, to demonstrate female gravitas ?"  Mr Harding: "We need to do something about the lack of female broadcasters over 50 - we need to make a determined and deliberate effort".

James Purnell, Director of Strategy and Digital, has tweeted that he went to see Beck (Hansen) (acoustic set) (Scientologist) at the weekend, featuring an encore performance from Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream.

Happening news

I still struggle with BBC News Online's preference for the present tense in reporting things that have happened, and have stopped happening by the time you read about them.

It's still there in a new short guide, cf this extract...

Nail the summary 

This is a single sentence that sells the story on the website’s front page. It should expand on the headline; can reflect the story’s intro; and should encapsulate what the story is about. 

The summary should ideally have no clauses and stick to the present or future tense. It should also be self-contained so that it can transfer easily for use on other BBC outlets.  

Headline: “Burglary at Ozzy Osbourne’s home” 

Summary: “A large amount of jewellery is stolen from the rock star Ozzy Osbourne’s mansion while he and his wife are sleeping.” 

I would prefer "A large amount of jewellery has been stolen from Ozzy Osborne's mansion while he and his wife were asleep". Though, frankly, I'd prefer it even more if it avoided the vague, and the passive, and said "Burglars have stolen jewellery from Ozzy Osborne's house, while he and his wife were sleeping there". And even more if you didn't mention it at all.

Oversight

Don't all rush. The BBC Trust has a vacancy, when what remains of Trustee Antony Fry departs for the Premier League. To get a shot at £33k per year for two days a week, you need a three page cv, a couple of referees, and 300-400 words each..

• on PSB issues facing The Trust 
• convincing them you can read a balance sheet 
• convincing them you can understand finance cases
• convincing them you can think for yourself
• convincing you've heard of commercial tv and radio
• explaining how The Trust relates to licence-fee payers
• demonstrating you can write and talk cogently

It's also a good idea to get a handle on the Seven Principles Underpinning Public Life, otherwise known as the Nolan Principles. These are not, to my knowledge, included for members of the BBC Executive, but, as we head to the Public Accounts Committee discussion on BBC severance payments, No 1's worth remembering and maybe including in future.

Selflessness Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or other friends

Stats update

And breathe. For those of you distracted by rugby, tennis, weather and Royal obit rehearsals, The Mail and The Times reported on Saturday that former Director of Nations and Regions, Pat Loughrey, was number two in the league table of BBC mega-pay-offs.

If they're right, we've only four to find before Wednesday's session of the Public Accounts Committee. The MPs may also be interested to extract the names of 15 leavers post-December and pre-September, whose exit deals were agreed before the new £150k cap was announced by Lord Hall.

Risky ?

She's wild, that Gwyneth Williams, Controller of Radio 4. Building on her pledge to "throw some fireworks" into the schedule, she's asked Grayson Perry, the potter who likes dressing up, to deliver the Reith Lectures.

This particular Roman Candle has already appeared on Newsnight, Question Time, This Week, Have I Got News For You, With Great Pleasure, Desert Island Discs and two editions of spiky Alan Yentob's Imagine - not to mention arts-based discussions on Today, The Culture Show, and Front Row.  That, plus a Radio 4 commissioned trip from Chelmsford to Bavaria, on a pink motorbike with his favourite teddy, Alan Measles.

Control

Whilst my sense of fair play may not be innate, I feel I should tell you that Jeff Zucker's revamp of CNN is changing the recent hierarchy of news channels in the USA. In the last quarter, CNN pulled ahead of MSNBC in prime time, to take second place, though still some way behind Fox News.

The new breakfast programme has had a good start; the arrival of Jake Tapper at 4pm creates a stronger platform for the evening output; amd whilst Piers Morgan still "hammocks" between Anderson Cooper's shows, he's pulling ahead of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC much more often.

On a vaguely-related matter, I look forward to a debate between Piers, campaigner for gun control, and Stuart Prebble, who last week reported on "breadth of opinions" in the BBC's news and current affairs output. I copy the relevant Prebble passage without comment.

The example with which I have regularly irritated journalists and producers within the BBC during this review involves the issue of gun control in the United States. I believe that many people listening to or watching the BBC in recent months would infer from its coverage that the BBC is in favour of gun control in America. This does not mean that opponents of gun control are not given airtime on the BBC but that, when they are, it seems to me that they are likely to be challenged in a manner which is different from the way that proponents are treated. This happens, I suggest, because of what we could call “an assumed consensus” within which we make editorial judgements – as evidenced by the Today programme presenter who declared in an interview on 23 February that “the British people are bemused by the anti-gun control argument in the US”. All our instincts tell us that having fewer guns in circulation must be a good thing, and so (to a greater or lesser extent) the BBC treats as eccentrics anyone who takes a different view.
But let us see if we can look at the situation in another way. Tens of millions of people in the United States oppose gun control, and they cannot all be crazy. Opponents of gun control are not people who are in favour of shooting children in schools with automatic rifles – they are people who are every bit as against it as are the rest of us – they simply have a different answer to the question of how to make such shootings less likely. They believe that if you introduce gun control into a nation where there are already tens of millions of legal and illegal guns in circulation, then the law-abiding citizens will give up their guns, and the criminals will keep theirs; not a situation guaranteed to make our children safer. 

Seeing this argument from all sides involves the very simplest exercise in empathy. It goes without saying that if the US were starting from a position similar to the position in the UK, where relatively few guns are in circulation, then every effort should be made to restrict their further circulation. But that is not the situation in the US; that horse has bolted, and they are dealing with an entirely different position. If between us we are unable to stretch our powers of empathy even to the extent of imagining a different starting point, then what hope do we have of understanding and empathising with the views of people we disagree with from the Middle East or North Korea?

Selectors

Whilst the Newsnight team await the arrival of new editor Ian Katz, they'll be delighted to know that he fought off 53 other candidates; that the final interview panel was Fran Unsworth, Acting Director of News Janice Hadlow, Controller BBC Two,  Ceri Thomas, Head of News Programmes and Dan Goad, Head of HR, Network News; and that "candidates were scored against a set of competencies during their interviews and the decision as to who was appointed will have been made jointly between the interviewers based on these scores."

This response to an FOI inquiry sets a neat precedent - presumably the BBC can release the names of all interview panels on request. Go for it, boys and girls.

Dining in

I've spent a little time musing who Roger Mosey could invite to High Table at Selwyn College when the 'slebs aren't available. Since Dame Patrica Hodgson (former BBC policy and planning supremo under John Birt) left Newnham College, just across Sidgwick Avenue, I can't find any other colleges with former Beeb staffers in high places. But Dame Fiona Reynolds, non-executive director at the Beeb, will be at the Master's Lodge of Emmanuel from October. And Paul Mylerea, former BBC Comms Director, is about to take over Comms for the University.

And there are others round about: Trevor Dann, one-time producer of DLT, The Old Grey Whistle Test and aide-de-camp to Matthew Bannister, an alumnus of Fitzwilliam, lives in the city, and occasionally, as befits a former Chief Exec of the Radio Academy, strays onto the airwaves of Cambridge 105fm.  At Radio Cambridgeshire, there's Paul Barnes, now 70, with a regular regional jazz show; he used to be a reporter on Newsbeat, Today and The World At One. And Keith "Cardboard Shoes" Skues, ex Radio 1, with a Sunday evening show (74). Slightly younger there's Chris Mann at Drivetime, ex network BBC, but remembered more for his time at Sky News.

Younger still: John Cary, former Dep Ed on Today and Radio 5 Live is around, having moved when he joined the Cambridge Evening News. John's now with the NCTJ.  Peter Phillips, former finance head in BBC News, is now Chief Executive of the Cambridge University Press.

Ackers

More has been coming out of the BBC side over the parting of the ways with Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd.

Now it seems her deal was worth £180k  - upped from £120k in 2004, when the BBC sought to ease the pain of stopping her writing a column for the Sunday Express. Her current contract, which had several months to run, was brought to an end on June 28, because the BBC considered her to be in breach of its terms.

So she's banked close to £60,000 for being off air for four months. Christa and her partner run Brook House B&B in Bronte Country - two doubles and a single, at £95 and £45 respectively.