Who knows best ?

I come a little late to Tom Archer's clearly heartfelt attack on the current systems of commissioning tv programmes in the UK. But it's started a debate with real legs. Tom's life has largely been as a maker and supplier of "factual", inside and outside the BBC. From 2008 to 2012 he headed BBC Factual across the UK. George Entwistle's "streamlining" exercise of March 2012 required the post to move from Bristol to Glasgow. So now trained zoologist Dr Nathalie Humphreys (ex-Shine TV) darts in and out of Pacific Quay, exercising "overall responsibility for development and delivery of all network factual programmes made by the BBC, spanning 1000 hours of award-winning and inspiring network content a year, from Africa, to Our War, Watchdog, Stargazing, Countryfile, Imagine, Songs Of Praise and The One Show".

And Tom, who seems a sensible bloke, is now Visiting Prof at the University of the West of England, and used his opening lecture thus...



If it's it a bit long for you, his argument is that the caravanserai of controllers, commissioners and schedulers who choose what gets made for UK tv, now also see themselves as the real programme-making experts - and without their controlling and shaping, most new projects are doomed to failure. (Tom counts 54 BBC commissioners involved in factual; Danny Cohen's board at Vision is a decidedly unwieldy 26-strong.)

Last night's new factual offering on BBC1 "Your Money, Their Tricks", from the Watchdog stable, couldn't have had a better send off, following extended coverage of Andy Murray. But it brought a cascade of Tweets of the "No sh*t, Sherlock" variety. Was it designed by committee ?

BREAKING NEWS... Cinema popcorn is expensive, fairground games are rigged and theatre tickets have online booking fees... #ymtt #youdontsay
— John Rankin Mills (@MillseyNMDJ) July 3, 2013