Wrap Party

A little of the old glory days returned to Television Centre tonight, with the opening of pop-up street market enterprise Storeys on the top floors of the old multi-storey car park, complete with eight compost toilets.

I can only find one reference to the former occupiers in the various stall menus - a cocktail called BBC Iced Tea - vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, fresh lemon/sugar mix, topped with cranberry juice and lemon. Perfect to stiffen the resolve just before Newsnight....

Old news

You sort of expect a few repeats from long ago on tv channels in July/August. Wednesday saw the BBC News Channel plunder its archives from December 2011, for a Sarah Montague interview with Duff McKagan, a founder member of Guns N' Roses, recorded back in Television Centre. No, I don't know why...

Marked ?

Are the sharp elbows of BBC Chairman Rona Fairhead in play again ?  The BBC Trust has a Head of Communications, Mark Devane, happily tweeting away this morning. But there's now an advert for a Head of Communications on a 15-month contract.

Mark, an aspiring guitarist, (Havant Sixth Form College, Dartington College, University of Kent and University of Central Lancashire) came to the Trust job in 2009, from DERA, with a CV that included the North Devon Journal, the Derby Evening Telegraph and close to five years in the DCMS press team.

3pm update. Elbows may not have been used. Mark has landed a job as Director of Communications for Leeds University. 

Trousered

TimeOut confirms that Alan Yentob is now prepared to don his country leisure wear in the capital.

"We’re meeting The Maccabees for breakfast in a Notting Hill joint frequented by A-list movie stars and BBC execs. We know this because Kate Hudson is sat two tables down and Alan Yentob is on the other side in what may or may not be his pyjamas."

Vroom vroom

The producer charged with making Top Gear The Retread a success is Lisa Clark, who has previously worked with Chris Evans on The Big Breakfast and Don't Forget Your Toothbrush.

The connections go further. Lisa started out working for The Sun as a staff reporter under Kevin McKenzie in 1987, a job she says coated her with Teflon. She was then signed as a presenter for Network 7, Channel 4's yoof offering of 1987/8. Described as 'no Sue Lawley' she turned to production as a researcher on London Weekend Live. The Big Breakfast followed in 1992, hired by Charlie Parsons, who she had met on Network 7.

At the Big Breakfast she met sound engineer Dan McGrath, who became Chris Evans's producer at Radio 1 - and later Mr Lisa Clark.

Lisa worked with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer on Shooting Stars, and has been part of their production company Pett TV.

Described once as a woman who could "belch for England", one might have guessed a car show was on the way from late May, when via Twitter she suddenly followed Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Radio 2.

Money matters

A good week to update you on the Whittingdale ISA. Remember, on your behalf, I've notionally invested £3k each in Sky, ITV, BT, Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press at the prices quoted at 1030 on Monday 11 May, one minute after the announcement of John's appointment as Culture Secretary.

Sky and ITV are unsurprisingly up on this week's figures, and BT has edged into positive territory. But Johnston Press is down 25% and Trinity Mirror down 30%. So the portfolio overall is down 9%. Come on, John.

Singing in the rain

“Please provide details of the following the total quantity and cost of branded BBC election 2015 umbrellas purchased since January 2013.”

 "The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’"

Posting posts

As with many of my posts, I'm not sure this is interesting. But it may be to somebody. It shows how many locally-recruited staff are employed by the BBC in News, World Service and Monitoring outside the UK, and what sort of jobs they're doing. S40.2 is a section of the Freedom of Information Act that allows organisations to keep schtum when the info they're being asked for might identify individuals. I suspect now this number of local recruits pales into insignificance when compared with the number working for BBC Worldwide, which is not subject to FOI legislation.

Better together

A tad more co-ordination between BBC1 and BBC2 might be more encouraging for that rare thing, new comedy. The Agatha Christie experience brought 6.5 million to BBC1 for the first episode of Partners In Crime, with Jessica Raine acting David Walliams off the screen. The share - at 29% - was the same as the launch episode of the 21st Century Poldark.

Sadly, it was still going strong when Javone Prince's second sketch show hit BBC2 at 2145. It suffered - an audience of just 320k, and a share of 1.6%.

Homes Under The Hammer

Peter Salmon gets another going-over in The Guardian for not, apparently, buying a family home in Manchester during his seven-year tenure as King of the North for the BBC.

I think he did buy a family home there once, during his twenty-month stay with Granada as Director of Programmes, in 1996/7. A semi-detached villa in a leafy street in Didsbury, probably now worth £750k if he'd hung on to it.

Backing tracks

I bet Florence Welch is writing to the DCMS in support of BBC radio's music output. Florence and her Machine owe much of their early success to the support of BBC Introducing, picked up by Steve Lamacq in March 2008. This year her new album went straight to the top of the Billboard rankings in May, and she headlined Glastonbury.

She's signed to Island Records. Maybe the marketing department, where one Henry Whittingdale works, can make the case.

Lord Corridor

Not a great quality photo, but perhaps it's a good morning to offer a picture of a Lord dressing up for something wholesome. So here's the BBC DG Lord Hall receiving an honorary degree last week from King's (College).

Timely

September 3rd may prove a key date in television history. The UK's provider of tv viewing figures, BARB, will launch their first weekly report giving data for online viewing.

BARB members have all embedded some trackable code in their various programmes, and Kantar Media have developed a way of collating that at device level, be it a laptop, desktop, tablet or smartphone, belonging to people who live in the homes that make up part of the BARB panel.

The stage that follows is called Project Dovetail, which will merge the online stats with the traditional BARB figures for tv viewing, collated from 5,000 representative households with meters attached to each device in the home, and special remotes for each member of the household to sign in.

Dovetail is a bit like creating a new Top 20 for records, merging downloads and streaming with physical record sales - and it'll take a bit of getting used to. But it'll create a more level playing field to judge competing claims, and, if it comes in time, will really inform the Charter Renewal debate.

News, but not as we know it...

The Observer Chronicle is a weird news site which appears to operate from New York. It seems to generate content by scraping real news sites, then changing some words via a synonym dictionary, presumably to avoid charges of copyright infringement.

It caught my eye through a story on Charter Renewal, which appears to be scraped from BBC News.
Lord Hall, on second reference, becomes Lord Corridor. Home Editor Mark Easton becomes Residence Editor. The Green Paper becomes an inexperienced paper.  Top Gear becomes Prime Equipment.

You cannot be serious !

A mildly diverting discourse in The Guardian/Observer between two radio doyennes, playing with the word 'serious'.

Last weekend, a comment piece from Anne McElvoy, who both writes and broadcasts (and would probably like to present The Today Programme) said, effectively, we should all calm down about Charter Renewal. "The BBC is not undergoing involuntary euthanasia".

On scope and scale, she wrote "The BBC is big and has expanded rapidly from the 1990s. There are some good reasons for this – and some not so good. It is large because scale helped it achieve impact in a global media world and technology has enabled it to add services quickly. It has not, however, undergone much scrutiny for the impact of this on others. A serious radio competitor, for example, has never got off the ground, while newspaper websites are up against its prodigious online offering. Asking a group of people who have run other broadcasting bodies to advise the government on the BBC’s impact on media markets is not lese-majesty."

Today, the Telegraph's radio critic Gillian Reynolds writes to the Observer thus "Commercial radio in the UK competes seriously and successfully wherever there is a mass audience to be attracted. It does not, however, compete in 'serious radio' because the audience it would attract (for features, documentaries, drama, comedy, etc) is not sufficient to justify the higher costs entailed. What 'serious radio' commercial competitor would, for instance, underwrite her regular Radio 3 arts review, Free Thinking, or her Radio 4 series on Charlemagne and his legacy, or even the show where she has now also become a regular, Radio 4’s Moral Maze?"

One in seven

A letter from behind the Times paywall reinforces my point about the contribution BBC Radio makes to the success of modern British music. It comes from Ged Doherty, who is chairman of the British Phonographic Industry and the Brits. A Glaswegian, he started out booking punk bands while at Sheffield Poly (and working at The Limit Club), and moved to manage Paul Young and Alison Moyet - thence through big record labels like Epic, Columbia, Arista, BMG and finally Sony Music UK.

Sir, On countless occasions I have witnessed the impact of the BBC and the role it plays in helping British talent globally. 

One of the reasons British music is thriving is due to artists being exposed to all kinds of influences as they grow up listening to the BBC, giving them that vital creative edge that helps them to become world beaters. 

Music is one of Britain’s success stories. It not only creates a dynamic vision of the UK, but also boosts our global exports – last year one in seven albums sold overseas was by a British artist. This success is underpinned by the BBC’s commitment to music in all its forms. 

The discovery and breaking of new artists would be severely damaged were BBC Radio to be curtailed, especially as there are desperately few outlets for music on television. 

This, combined with so many live venues being forced to close, is giving rise to huge concerns across the music community. 

Ged Doherty

Down, but not out

In 2013/14, the BBC shared the information that 10 members of staff had been moved from a Senior Management Grade to Band 11 (a sort of lead NCO role with no access to the Officers' Mess).

For 2014/15, the BBC are only prepared to share the information than fewer than 10 members of staff have suffered the same ignominy. This, apparently, prevents said members of staff from being identified. But note, they're still doing it....

Gone

One problem resulting from social media hyper-activity is that people notice when you stop. Danny Cohen, Director of BBC Television, and his wife Professor Noreena Hertz, haven't tweeted since July 18 and July 16 respectively. Is it a change of strategy, a self-denying ordinance, or a holiday ? The calendar is ticking...

Go compare

The handy website Compare My Radio tracks the output of over 90 music radio stations across the UK, and produces for each what it calls a "Variety Gauge".

At 100%, it means that every song the station has played in the last 30 days has been different - quite a feat.  The current average across all the stations is 4%.

It includes four BBC networks. Radio 1 currently has a Variety Gauge of 39%; 1Xtra is at 40%; Radio 2 is on 61% and 6Music on 65%.

Of the bigger commercial stations, Absolute has a Variety Gauge of 21%, Magic 17%, Heart 13% and Capital a majestic 4%.  When they say "More Music", they mean "More of the same music". [The stats also reveal something about Radio 2's increased speech content - over 30 days, the station has played 6,829 tracks, compared with Capital's 9,876.]

Does this matter ? It does when we're heading for Charter Renewal. Look out for submissions from the music industry. More tracks means more room for new artists, and more opportunities to find a new star to make money here and around the world.

John Myers, who has worked both for the BBC and commercial radio, made some important points in a recent blog post - principally, that the big commercial groups are now making healthy profits, and yet...

...the industry has focused its efforts on providing low cost popular music services rather than investing in rich and more expensive content that may have challenged the BBC’s dominance more effectively. 

In my view, this has resulted in a poorer, blander and more predictable listen of late than at any time in its 40 odd year history....

Knowing what we know, anyone who thinks commercial radio will fill the gap in a diminished BBC is either drunk or deluded.

I'm really rather pleased to note this entry in the comments section of John's post, even if it was in the early hours...

Where do we go from here ?

One of a few unanswered questions in the Nikkei purchase of the Financial Times Group is where the hacks are going to be based. The deal doesn't include the grim, stilted, One Southwark Bridge building, home since 1989. Nikkei's London correspondents are based on the 6th floor of Barnard's Inn, in Fetter Lane; their business magazine team are in Regus serviced offices in Berkshire, between Bracknell and Legoland.

The Pink 'Un's first proper home, in 1900, was in 72 Coleman Street, running parallel to Moorgate. When it opened, a print trade magazine wrote ‘a visit to this well-equipped, well-managed office is like ozone to a practical man’.

In 1959, they got another purpose-built home, designed by Albert Richardson, built on a bomb site near St Paul's Cathedral. Bracken House, faced with sandstone from Staffordshire, brought editorial and printing under one roof.  In the 1970s, an office refresh very much of its time led to the newsroom being nicknamed The Blue Lagoon.

In the late 80s, printing and editorial went their separate ways, with the presses going to Nicholas Grimshaw's FT Printworks in Docklands - and the journos heading to what was then thought to be the wrong side of the Thames. There have been an number of re-stacks of the building, getting more people in from outlying offices, but I suspect they could now manage with something smaller.

Pearson will probably sell - their hq offices are based in The Strand, in the complex which straddles from the south side of the street through to the Shell building overlooking the Thames. Pearson, over time, have bought and sold stakes in Chateau Latour, Doulton china, Madame Tussaud's and Alton Towers.

Not Fade Away

Lord Patten reminisces on his student days in an Oxford University podcast this week.

He was at Balliol, studying medieval history alongside the French Revolution. It was the "Swinging Sixties", but the good Lord says he didn't realise he was being swung. He was fly-half for the college rugby team, an opening bowler at cricket, found time to play for a Sunday side, as well as acting and writing.

Perhaps the biggest injection of contemporary music into his life was attending the Magdalene Commemoration Ball in 1964, which featured three half hour sets from The Rolling Stones, the last at 3.20am, following John Lee Hooker in the Cabaret Marquee. In the same tent, you got local rockers The Falling Leaves (who had to lend Bill Wyman an amp), and Freddie and The Dreamers. Johnny Dankworth's Band and Tubby Hayes filled the Jazz Marquee until nearly 6am. In the Ballroom, you had the unlikely combination of Ian Stewart and His Orchestra (of Music While You Work fame) and John Mayall's Blues Breakers.

Lord Patten attended with his girlfriend from St Hilda's, Mary Lavender St Leger Thornton, later his wife. Double tickets were 8 guineas.The Rolling Stones were paid £100 in 1964, honouring a booking made a year earlier, before they'd released a single.

Entertainingly, as we move from Coalition to Full On Tory Government, Magdalene couldn't afford to run a Commem Ball this year.

News from the front line

The BBC Trust, who formally pushed the self-destruct button this week, have at least produced a decent online consultation questionnaire on Charter Renewal, with 16 open questions, as opposed to the 19 from the DCMS effort which are as tightly closed as Osborne's wallet walking down Benefits Street.

Meanwhile there's a pre-Tuscany frenzy of debate contributions - Rona Fairhead available on everything bar the red button, Lord Hall let in behind the Murdoch paywall, perhaps to see what it feels like. The best of the week comes from Peter Oborne, first written for Open Democracy and now available from the Indie.

Meanwhile the Mail and the BBC are spatting over the big one - what is the right price for a presenter photograph ? The Mail, through intensive investigation like reading her tweets, found the BBC World News presenter Yalda Hakim had been snapped by (John) Rankin, and they think he charges £20k a day. [Yalda is much admired by Rod Liddle]. The BBC said no licence fee money was used - it was funded by BBC Global News Ltd, part of the BBC Worldwide. The Mail said they knew that anyway, and tweeted about fungibility, which is always a good thing, isn't it ? It is possible that Auntie got a deal on this - apparently hunky news hack Ian Pannell got a portrait too. Maybe it was BOGOF day...

Day oh

The scale of cuts facing the BBC over the next year is brought home by an announcement from the Factual and Daytime wing of televison production based in London.

40 out of ninety producer jobs are to go, with redundancy volunteers sought to cut six executive producers, 13 series producers and 21 producers; pipe up by September 8th.

Boss Nathalie Humphreys said the amount of available work had dropped by a quarter in the past few years; that the number of senior staff had crept up through promotions, so more would be affected; and, tellingly, that these plans pre-dated Lord Hall's call for another 1,000 job cuts across the BBC. Then there's the licence fee settlement, which envisages budget cuts of 10% to 20% over the next five years, depending on whose figures you believe.

If tv are that far behind with matching staff to meaningful work, it's hardly a surprise that there's a change coming in HR. One wonders how many of the '2,000 'creatives' will be left for Peter Salmon when he actually starts BBC Studios ?

The full gory details are in The Guardian.

Tell Laura....

As we tipped back on July 9, Laura Kuenssberg has become the BBC's first female Political Editor. 

Newsgathering boss Jonathan Munro, the divison's most senior tweeter, broke the news of the appointment on the social media network, and then mysteriously deleted it. JM, who worked with Laura during her spell as Business Editor at ITN, is keen on 'exclusives' particularly if they demonstrate his centrality. (He also recently shared his gratitude to BA for an upgrade to first class on Twitter.)

Unfortunately today's evaporating message was published before even Laura had been informed of her success, never mind some of the disappointed candidates.

Home and dry

The global reach target set by BBC Director General Tony Hall has been achieved - by a country mile, according to stats from a company called Global Web Index, reported in the Guardian.

It says 9% of the world's population have used the iPlayer in the past month. From an estimate of 7.3 billion, I make that 657,000,000. And Tony only wanted 500 million by 2022.

Nice one

The new Ofcom boss Sharon White displayed an impressive mastery of the brief and big issues, in front of the all new, all white, all male DCMS Select Committee this morning.

She's been at work since the last week in March, so has done some serious homework. Relaxed, with a slightly-cheeky pink watch, and confident enough to do the job without ranks of advisers in the immediately surrounding seats. Some missin' consonants, a few answers startin' 'So', but a welcome new player as we move towards Charter Renewal. 

Not good

Here's an online headline from 0730 that I can't see lasting long. Sir David Frost died in August 2013.

Long division

Myself and a number of like-minded dullards are now hyper-excited about restructuring the BBC.

If you believe management salaries should follow headcount rather than budget, yesterday's move of Peter Salmon to run 2,000 'creatives' (Salmon-speak for staff) in BBC Studios leaves Danny Cohen rather well-paid to run the rump of around 400 commissioning and scheduling operatives in television.

Helen Boaden boosts her longevity by picking up responsibility for 3,200 employees in BBC England, to add around 1,200 in network radio.

The big output wagons of news, tv and radio right around the UK harbour techies in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with different ways of doing the same job, and we know Ralph Rivera from Digital, Matthew Postgate, from Engineering nee Technology, and David Gibbons, a new big brain CIO at Worldwide, have been told to crash them together.  

In support, Anne Bulford, in Finance and Operations, is doing an insource-outsource fandango, with HR building a new shared in-house team in the Mailbox, partly as a way of pacifying the MPs and newspapers of the Second City. James Purnell is downsizing re-focussing marketing and the UK online offering.

Maybe not even James Harding is safe in this job-straddling exercise. Depending on who you believe he has between 6,500 and 7,500 staff. But remember, Lord Hall is Editor-in-Chief, and an old news hand. He already does one morning meeting...

Clare in the community

The BBC's new HR boss, Valerie Hughes D'Aeth, is still steaming forward, with a few colleagues going overboard into the wake.

Following the departure of Karl Burnett as HR Director for News, Valerie has advertised for a new 'thought-partner' to be Director of HR for Television. This post was most recently occupied by Clare Dyer, billed on the BBC management website as HR Director, Television, North and Nations - though her Linkedin entry suggests she's now joined BBC Alumni.

Clare was the "dismissing officer" in the case of Chief Technology Officer John Linwood, who won his case for unfair dismissal. The employment tribunal was fairly dismissive of Clare. She gets a nicer endorsement from former BBC tech guru Erik Huggers "I would work with her again in a heartbeat".

Clare keeps her heartbeat up with Pilates, and is interested in positive psychology and its impact on the body.

Shuffle

So Peter Salmon, 59, becomes the first Director of BBC Studios. The boy from Burnley's been good for MediaCityUK (he headed his farewell email to staff there "Au Revoir Chucks"), but he's managed to avoid the promised purchase of "a family home" oop north since becoming Director of BBC North at the end of 2008. The bulk of his new work will be in London, reached with ease from his Twickenham base, and he can turn up in person more often at the Executive team meetings.

In another of the straddling roles that are becoming daily more noticeable at the BBC, Helen Boaden, Director of Radio, also 59, covers the Salmon gap, as Director of  BBC England - she already has a seat on the full Executive. Helen has radio career roots in Leeds and Manchester, and presumably can fire to the various meetings around her new patch both from London, and her holiday home in the shadow of Scarborough Castle.

Trebles all round, as Lord Hall can say: "There will be no additional executive posts and no salary changes."

Today's postbag

Here's a better letter, borrowed from behind the Times' paywall, and written to their editor from the BBC Charter Renewal bunker by James "Diddy Daddy" Purnell.

Sir, 

The BBC has not expanded “as if on steroids”, as your leader claims (“Slimming Auntie”, July 17). In the past five years, our income has fallen by 15 per cent. In the budget, we agreed our funding baseline for the next five — a further 10 per cent fall.

Nor does the BBC have “an overwhelming, and therefore troubling, market dominance”. The BBC is forecast to have just 12 per cent of TV revenues by the end of the next charter. In online news, the BBC’s share has fallen from a third to a fifth. Yes, we have created new services such as iPlayer and 6Music, but these have been mostly funded from efficiency. 

We agree with you about the need for diversity in British media. Audiences should have the choice between thriving newspapers and news from the BBC. Rather than shrinking the BBC’s website, however, we should be asking how it can help local newspapers: in particular, through linking to their sites, sharing content or paying them for reporting. 

The BBC has been slimming down and will continue to do so. Making the BBC have a core licence fee and a top-up subscription would further narrow it; we would no longer bring the country together. Audiences that wanted the same content as before would pay twice as much; those who opted out would save only 5p a day.

James Purnell Director, strategy & digital, BBC

Sense and Sensibility

En passant, we note that the very-on-message John Shield, Director of Communications-But-Maybe-Not-Letters in the BBC Charter Renewal bunker, has decided to merge the comms role supporting Television and Radio.

Sam Hodges, former spinner for Danny Cohen at Television, has left for Twitter, and has flown to San Francisco for indoctrination induction. Jamie Austin, previously Head of Comms for Radio and Music, just adds Television to his bailiwick.  He's moved to adjust the title on his Twitter account, but has yet to find an icon that is a little more reflective of his new bi-media responsibilities.

Jamie comes from Nottingham, via business studies at the Unversity of the West of England, entering the BBC spinning machine in Bristol in 2006, after a spell with the Bristol & West Building Society. He moved up to run the radio operation in 2010, and now has a beard and a young family in East Finchley.

Perhaps his first job in the new wider role will be to calm down those who think more jobs running across radio and television are in Lord Hall's September plans....

Moreish

I suspect I have readers who are already tiring of micro-coverage of the Charter Renewal debate. Sorry.

There was an emollient performance by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, in which he said he had some sympathy with the luvvies' missive concocted in the BBC Charter Renewal bunker: "As for the letter which was published by the various celebrities, actually most of that I fully agreed with. As I said, I admire the BBC. The last thing I want to do is undermine the BBC."

The Mail suggests this tone comes from the top. "We don't want to get ahead of ourselves with these attacks,", they report, quoting a Cabinet minister. "People like the telly more than the Tories." A Tory minister of lower rank tells the Mail reporter "My concern is we don't want to be seen to be advocating the privatisation of The Archers."  Certainly that had passed me by in the Green Paper.

Meanwhile, back in the BBC bunker, letter and Twitter-meister Danny Cohen is in for the social media long haul.

I'm told there's some unpleasant stuff in the papers about me in the last couple of days. Comes with standing up for the BBC. #BackTheBBC

— Danny Cohen (@DannyCohen) July 18, 2015

On petition site 38 Degrees, the "Protect Our BBC" campaign stands at 231,692 signatories, a little behind the current chart topper. "Keep the ban on bee-killing pesticides" at 442,028.

Might as well...

We have to wait to September for the BBC to unveil its vision of Auntie's future beyond 2016. I presume the bones of the strategy are in the can. The BBC Trust held its last meeting before the summer holidays on 14/15 July (we don't get the minutes until October) and its next full session is not until 23/24 September.

So, somewhere in edit and graphic suites, the value proposition of what you can do with flat funding is being given some polish. Not too much, of course - probably the touchstone is Waitrose Essentials.

We have some clues from James Purnell, the former Labour Culture Secretary pitted against the current Tory, John Whittingdale. They come from his interview with the Telegraph. " I really rate John. He is extremely knowledgeable about the industry. We are looking forward to negotiating with him."

There'll be a call for regulated public service access, not necessarily live, to big sporting events beyond the 'Crown Jewels'. “At the moment we would still say we have got a very healthy portfolio of sports rights. One of the important things for charter review is to think about how we preserve that. We need that balance between exposure so that you get the next generation of fans but also the revenue and the very professional coverage that you get from subscription providers. That’s something that needs to be protected through regulation.”

There'll be a difficult piece of work attempting to define where and why the BBC will run websites beyond iPlayer, BBC3, news, weather and basic sport in the UK. The daftness here is that BBC Worldwide is one expansion driver. It's been winning funding through irritating ad pop-ups around the world for extra content - which the BBC is likely, under the assault from newspapers, to keep away from the eyes of people logging on in the UK.   and, quietly, as pointed out in the esteemed James Cridland's comment below, this content is becoming available in the UK.

James Purnell talks about "differentiating" the website offering from commercial competitors. "We want to have a really good debate with newspapers about how we can be a resource for the whole of the sector and how what we can do can be distinctive and complementary.” This apparently might mean more free video content for newspaper sites to use, and a long-needed commitment to pay local paper reporters who get to a good story first.

Expect a big chunk on civic debate wider than daily party politics. “By having an institution like the BBC you can talk about all the difficult things that countries have to face up to, the difficult issues, resolve that through debate rather than government diktat." This is sensitive stuff, arguing that the BBC provides opportunities for social cohesion and understanding, at a time when it feels like tiny but persistent pockets of support for violent extremism keep popping up in school playgrounds, college canteens, online communities and quiet, anonymous streets.

For BBC insiders, the interesting element will be to see if Lord Hall, Purnell and McKinsey can make any meaningful inroads on the BBC baronies. Historically, there's been little major movement in the shares of income between tv, radio and online since John Birt left. Each divisional director seeks to grow their spend year-on-year, and only accepts cuts if there are cuts all round. All attempts are genuine zero-budgeting are shaken off.  Arguments about funding for orchestras, Newsnight, Homes Under The Hammer, Radio 2 (v 6Music, say), comedy development, star contracts, end bootlessly. Will Tone be tough this time ?

Justin Time

I had a bad moment with the First Night of The Proms...

I kept thinking the savings had really kicked in, and legendary children's entertainer Mr Tumble was on the rostrum for Belshazzar's Feast, not Sakari Oramo.

Daddy

BBC Director of Strategy and Digital James Purnell, 45, is the proud father of a baby daughter.

The Telegraph reveals that his first day back at work, after a fortnight' paternity leave, was Thursday - with publication of the Green Paper on Charter Renewal comming just before 1pm. “I did have daddy brain, I must say. It was slightly fuzzy for first few hours.”

Still, by the time of the Telegraph interview, Jim turns parenthood to the advantage of #backthebbc:
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced. She is absolutely great. My youth was spent listening to Desert Island Discs and the Today programme. I very much want to make sure that it is still here in a generation to come.”

Doing without

This could be interesting. The Guardian says that the BBC has taken a representative cross-section of licence-payers - from enthusiast to refuseniks - and conducted a trial which left them without BBC tv, radio and online services for two weeks. Graham Norton seems to have ownership of the idea, saying he wrote to Lord Hall with a more extreme suggestion - stop all BBC output for two weeks and repay £24 to each licence-fee holder.

The acid test is whether or not the Daily Mail could fill its columns without the BBC to get it riled up. Readers might like to suggest a self-denying ordinance. The stream of important news about Kardashians will probably fill the gap, in the Mail's distinctive, public service sort-of-way, threatened as it is by the imperial ambitions of Kardashian coverage offered by the BBC website.

Mimi

John Whittingdale's second special advisor at the DCMS is Miroslava 'Mimi' Macejkova, who comes fresh from the free-thinking office of Philip Davies, MP for Shipley and serial BBC-botherer.

Mimi boasts an MSc, but I can't find where she got it. She joined Gardant Communications as an intern/researcher in 2010, and was a campaign assistant for the Conservative party in that year's election. Then it was back to political PR, before landing an intern role with Steve Baker, Tory MP for Wycombe. A proper job in the office of Dominic Grieve, MP for Beaconsfield, then Attorney General followed. In 2012, she became "Senior Parliamentary Researcher and Office Manager" for Philip Davies, already providing straight media thinking on John Whittingdale's DCMS Select Committee.

Mimi shares her birthday with the late Margaret Thatcher, and is a member of the Facebook fan page "I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher". The Freedom Association presented her with a birthday present (left) in 2013.

When she's not at Freedom Association pub quizzes, she likes the music of Lenny Kravitz and The Rolling Stones. She declared tickets to a Kings of Leon concert in 2013, provided by Japan Tobacco International. In the same year, KW Communications took her to Gibraltar to further research on the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill.

The spin, to the Publishers' Association, is that she "will most likely be deployed in keeping Conservative backbenchers content around BBC Charter Renewal issues."

Patience

Time for a Friday of reflection in the BBC Charter Renewal Bunker. Perhaps DG Lord Hall should remember his producer skills, and have a little coaching session with Strategy Director James Purnell, who got a little high-pitched on Newsnight, in the face of Stephen Glover from the Mail. It's possible that James is feeling the pressure - I thought he was on paternity leave - but Auntie can't let this debate become shouty, and there are better ways of handling shameless rogues in tv discussions.




The BBC has sent MPs a DVD for their summer recess delectation. It features an episode of the new Clangers; the award-winning play Marvellous; and a recent episode of Imagine, on American architect Frank Gehry. Yes, with Alan Yentob.

What the papers say..

The Guardian: The BBC is not perfect. But set against its role as a thread in the warp and woof of national life, its flaws seem insignificant. Its funding model and its mission to inform, educate and entertain allow it to reflect the different parts of the UK to each other and to the world. That is why Britain tops the global soft power league. There could be a different BBC. But it would reflect a different Britain.

FT: Given the range of media options available to the public, the BBC must justify its existence as never before. It will face tough choices. But ministers should not second guess. They should set the money and mission, leaving the BBC to set priorities itself.

Daily Mail: The Mail has long argued that the Corporation’s massive website and proliferation of channels and local radio stations are crushing plurality and stifling debate. We believe its relentless expansion at taxpayers’ expense must be curbed.

The Telegraph: Both Labour and the BBC are already crying foul. Yet this review is not part of some diabolical Tory plot; instead it is an attempt to save a venerable institution from itself – an institution that has been beset by scandals born of arrogance and self-indulgence. The BBC needs to go back to the drawing board and think carefully about what it is for.

The Times: Mr Whittingdale must not be satisfied with lazy assertions of the BBC’s treasured place in public life, nor distracted by the excessive lobbying it has organised in recent days with the help of rich celebrities on its payroll. He asks if it can go on aspiring to be “all things to all people”. It is already clear that it cannot. In a multichannel universe in which the internet increasingly competes with television, the BBC should be ready to identify what it does best and can do better. At the same time it must rein in what George Osborne has called its “imperial” online ambitions. The corporation is a broadcaster, not a publisher. It cannot expect a renewed charter to endorse a status quo that lets it trample on private-sector rivals with public funds.

Second degrees

And still they come, trailing gowns and honorifics.

Today's Sarah Montague, at Bristol University

Former World Tonight presenter Robin Lustig in Topol at Sussex.

A little too much levity from Jeremy Bowen, Middle East Editor, travelling the Principality collecting scrolls - this from Cardiff Met.

Not much time

What happens now ?  Whittingdale sits back, and waits. The "consultation" closes on 8th October - just eighty-four days away. The BBC Trust seems to be charged with "engagement with the public", many of whom will be on holiday for some part of the consultation period. With the BBC Executive's position paper only arriving in September, that gives licence-fee payers just four weeks to get behind any new ideas - or reject them.

The eight outriders cogitate. Probably on smart-arse questions like "Which elements of universality are most important for the BBC?". Presumably more after 8th October than before; they've been told to meet up to six times over a year, and more members may be co-opted.

Whittingdale has also given himself the option of "Studies, reviews and research into a range of issues". I wonder who'll get the commissions ?

• There are 126 footnotes referencing sources in the Green Paper. The Mail and The Telegraph get two each, alongside all the Ofcom/Trust stuff. 

• If you fancy making your own smart-arse response to the smart-arse question, the online form can be found here. Don't let it spoil your contribution !

Dogmatic

John Whittingdale said it himself - there is evidence that the BBC drives up standards in the wider UK media landscape, but concerns that it has adverse impacts on commercial competitors.

So, in the Green Paper, setting out the arguments, the section on "Market Impacts" presents two - yes two positives, and five negatives. And the document is littered with "concerns" that are evidence-light.   George Osborne, The Radio Centre, Sky and a number of newspapers will be chuffed.

"The BBC has 60 per cent of the revenues of the radio sector in the UK, for example, while its provision of extensive free online content risks impacting a wide range of players."

"Given the vast choice that audiences now have there is an argument that the BBC might become more focused on a narrower, core set of services that can continue to meet its mission and objectives. A smaller BBC could see the public pay less for their TV licence and would also be likely to have a reduced market impact".

"Is the expansion of the BBC’s services justified in the context of increased choice for audiences? Is the BBC crowding out commercial competition and, if so, is this justified as the number of television and radio channels grow and the internet as a platform for television and radio content matures, there are counter arguments that the BBC does not need to be providing such a broad range of services in order to meet its public service objectives."

"The content budget for Radio 6 is £8 million compared to the combined almost £87 million for the arguably less distinctive Radio 1 and 2, while the BBC Trust has found that its highest spending service BBC 1 has the lowest score for ‘fresh and new’ of its main channels."

"Questions have been raised about whether content carried on the BBC’s website is sufficiently distinctive from content that can and is being developed and delivered by others. The growth of the internet as a medium for consuming information is one of the most notable developments over the current Charter period; in this context the challenge for the BBC will be in setting itself apart from others in the online space and potentially seeking to avoid providing services such as, for example, recipes where a range of other websites already do so. "

"For radio content, the BBC’s dominant position on speech radio, taken together with the comparatively low quotas for independent production, may be constraining a small but vibrant sector, which – as the recent New York Festival’s International Radio Programme Awards has shown – delivers truly innovative content and formats."

Someone should make Whittingdale go to the New York Festival. Nearly as prestigious as The Golden Sea Swallow of Knokke TV Festival.

Pacification

What about making BBC4 into BBC4 Nations ?

BBC4 England could come from Birmingham, BBC4 Scotland from the rambling prairies inside Pacific Quay, BBC4 Wales from Rhodri Talfan Davies' Cardiff city centre branch of Debenhams, and BBC4 Northern Ireland from some yet-to-be-identified space in the Titanic Quarter.

Essentially, they'd schedule within the current spirit of BBC4 - loaded with archives, but guess where you might see more Max Boyce, Super Furry Animals, Tales of the Para Handy, Deacon Blue, Undertones, Specials, Percy Thrower, etc ?

Weeknights only, then we all come together at weekends for a bit of Scandi-noir and vintage pop.

Flaky tradecraft

It's hardly a surprise, but more than a little embarrassing on the morning of the Green Paper, to find that BBC executives had more than a hand in shaping the luvvies' letter that emerged yesterday.

DJ Annie Nightingale, 75, helpfully tells The Times [paywall] about a meeting with Ben Cooper, her employer, Controller of Radio 1 and 1Xtra: “I bumped into Ben a couple of days ago. He said Danny Cohen [the director of BBC television] was putting this letter together and said, ‘Would you like to be included?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. I understood vaguely what it would say. I didn’t read the letter before it went out.”

This blog was amongst the first to spot that Rachel Weisz, another signatory, had been matron of honour at Danny Cohen's wedding in 2012. Watching Danny's Twitter account tells you he's on first name terms with 'Jo' - that's J K Rowling to you and me. Danny is a trustee of her charitable venture, Lumos.

And Danny was hyper-active on Twitter yesterday, tweeting and re-tweeting messages of support from both minor celebrities and the other Joe - Joe Public.

The question is - has Danny gone rogue ?  Comms chief John 'Cold' Shield may invite him into the Charter Renewal bunker to discuss a few concepts - 'deniability', 'timing' and 'co-ordination'.

To a degree

It's Rubovia time again around the UK's seats of learning, with BBC staff and BBC alumni dressing up for various honorary awards. Here's a selection; more welcome.

BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor at Dundee

Gabby Logan at Durham

Radio 1's Huw Stephens at Bangor

Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen at Aberystwyth

BBC Radio Scotland's (and rugby's) John Beattie at Abertay

Ex BBC Breakfast hostess Susanna Reid at Cardiff

Slim

If there's one particular place in the Corporation that's taken a big hit over the last five years, it's the BBC World Service - down by 609 in headcount, just over 24%.

Less from more

BBC Global News Ltd, which operates and puts ads on BBC World News and bbc.com, made a headline loss last year of £5m.  That's despite increasing its tv audience by 12% and bbc.com users by 16%. Sales fell from £101m to £93m.

Meanwhile, Director of News James Harding can vary his route to his morning newspaper session again - perhaps dropping by on the News Channel team, who are probably now safe for at least a couple of years. I'm not sure who put his mind right on this one. Maybe the BBC World News figures had something to do with it...

Annual report factoids 4

In terms of the simpler BBC, the spending on "public service broadcasting support" went up from £589m to £683m. HR and training cost £2.5m more than the previous year; Finance and Operations went up by £14.8m; and Technology £35.3m.

If the Bonfire of the Boards has made things simpler, it hasn't necessarily made things cheaper. 'Divisional Running Costs' rose from £62.6m to £85m.

Restructuring cost £11.1m over the year, and yet full-time employee numbers went up by 1.7%.

Annual report factoids 3

In Gaelic broadcasting, the BBC spent a total of £15m last year, up from £14.2m in the previous annual report. BBC Radio nan Gàidheal's costs per listener/hour fell from 19.6p to 18.9p - this looks high, because it is set against the Gaelic speaking population.  BBC Alba's cost per viewer hour went in the other direction - from 6.4p to 8.3p. This looks lower than the radio figure, because it is based on surveys of all viewers in Scotland.

In Wales, Radio Cymru cost 19.2p per listener hour, compared with 15.3p last time. Total service cost - content, distribution and support went up from £16.8m to £18.3m. Spending on S4C went up by a million, to £31m.

Annual report factoids 2

I've had one or two attempts at understanding the BBC Worldwide Annual report. It must be a triumph, because Tim Davie still got a bonus, albeit a tad down on last year, of £201,000.

"Headline profits" are down on last year, with various explanations - 'external headwinds', currency fluctuations, rough times in Russia, bigger spend on marketing and content for new channels. And yet apparently, there's underlying profit growth, if you take out the sale of half of BBC America to AMC networks. My puzzle is that the deal apparently brings in £115.9m, which in my single entry mind, ought to have made things even better this year.

In the detail, there's quite an additional lump of £8m for 'pension deficit reduction'. BBC Store, recently promised for launch in 'late summer', has moved to 'Autumn'.

In the overview, BBC Worldwide has returned £226.5m to the mothership. Chairman Hall says he expects £1bn over five years (which looks flat to me).

Annual report factoids 1

The simpler BBC Lord Hall promised is still struggling with the word "smaller". Staff numbers in total rose by 1.7%, to 18,974 full-time equivalents over the year. The number of senior managers fell - by just two, to 401. Within the churn, there are fewer senior managers paid less than £100k, and yes, more paid more than £100k. The report acknowledges that two targets have not yet been achieved – a 20% reduction in the number of senior managers earning over £150k and a senior manager population that is 1% of the workforce.

Licence fee collection and pension deficit costs went up - from £0.49 per household to £0.85p. Or in total from £151 to £290m (More than is spent on Online, now up to £201m, Ashley). Or as a percentage of income, from 4% to 7%. It might be useful to know the balance between the two costs.

In television, the general level of audience appreciation has fallen slightly over two years - from 83% to 81%. But those who think that BBC tv offers something "fresh and new" has risen over the same time, from 71% to 73%. 59% of UK adults believe the BBC performs well in representing their nation or region. That figure falls to 50% in Scotland.

The pay multiple between the median level of staff pay, and the Director General has stayed the same, at around 11, for the third year.

Here's a bit the Mail won't lift: BBC productivity has increased enormously. Twenty years ago the licence fee cost £147.44 in current prices and the BBC had two network television channels and five radio stations, in addition to local and nations output. Now the licence fee costs slightly less – £145.50 – and the BBC offers nine television channels, 11 radio stations, local and nations output, and a wealth of online and mobile services, including iPlayer and bbc.co.uk, as well as a range of additional obligations.

233 years on

Does the fightback start today ?  It's the earliest the BBC Annual report has been published for three years - and whilst the fourth floor offics of the DCMS in 100 Parliament Street may not be the Bastille, Lord Hall has chosen 14th of July to start the revolt on behalf of The Audience against The New Ancien Regime.

Good things have been leaked to friendly press, to demonstrate how Tone and his business partner Anne Bulford have got the organisation into a fitter shape. But there will inevitably be bits for the unfriendly press to pick over.

More interesting is the emerging battle over who decides what programmes are made with public money. Tory politicians who should know better have expressed views over the year - Cameron, Osborne, Sajid Javid, John Whittingdale and more. I bet the eight outriders can't wait to tell us what they do and don't like in the schedules.

A few forensic interviews with these people wouldn't go amiss, asking them to explain why average punter competition The Voice has to go, but average punter competition Bake-Off can stay ? And if they'd like to publish the research that shows the licence fee payers share their judgement ?  Perhaps they can point to commercial music services that have any smidge of the scale of commitment to news, discussion and live British music demonstrated by the BBC's networks ?  And explain why local newspapers are struggling, for example, in the USA without the competition and imperial ambitions of the BBC ? And estimate the total UK audience for Jeremy Hunt's local tv fiasco, taking £40m from the licence fee ? And share how much, as individuals, they spend a year with Sky and BT for media services to their various homes ?  One might even ask how much of the Green Paper has been written by Ray Gallagher, ex-Sky.

A grand 'insider' quote in The Guardian. "The last time politicians made decisions about creative content they gave us the Dome".

Oi

Meanwhile, the statistics branch of the DCMS, instead of doing something useful like counting the number of households boasting a 75-year-old resident, or totting up the number of times their Secretary has been caught dozing on camera, have branched into quizzes. This is a clear, imperial move, with the ambition of crowding out other quizzes from the market place. Wot next ? Game shows ?

This week we’re helping DCMS understand statistics, you can get involved through our quiz. We’ll be tweeting questions throughout the week.

— DCMS Insight (@DCMSInsight) July 13, 2015

No politics here

"So, Mr Whittingdale, what first attracted you to Ashley Highfield as an adviser on BBC Charter Renewal ?".

I'm not sure whether Ashley, CEO of local and regional newspaper group, the Johnston Press, knew he'd been selected when The Bottom Line edition of July 9 on Radio 4 was recorded. Here's part of his contribution, with host Evan Davis, and other guests from the FT and Guardian.

Show your appreciation by tuning in

Well, at least the licence fee payers are making use of 'free' Wimbledon while they can. An average of 7.4m watched the Djokovic/Federer final on BBC1 - that's 51.2% of the available audience over 4 hours and ten minutes. It's up from last year's average of 5.9m, 38.6% share.

Second biggest show of the day - Countryfile, with 6.2m. Perhaps Mr Whittingdale will let that one through in the "not chasing rates" file, as long as it gets its mind right about fox-hunting, which our Culture Secretary supports.

DCMS: The Next Generation

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale likes his culture macho - punk, heavy metal, horror films, and sci-fi. His favourite character in Star Trek is The Borg, not just a single person, but a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones in a hive mind. This comes from Star Trek: The Next Generation series, which came to tv screens when John was a manly 26, carying bags for Mrs Thatcher in her third election victory.

I am not familiar with The Borg, but according to Wikipedia, they were ranked 4th in a list of Nastiest Villains of All Time by TV Guide in 2013. Individual Borg rarely speak. Instead they send a collective audio message to their targets, stating that "resistance is futile", generally followed by a declaration that the target in question will be assimilated and its "biological and technological distinctiveness" will be added to their own.

We'll see if there are more comparisons we might offer when John 'Two Puddings' Whittingdale publishes his Green Paper on BBC Charter Renewal on Thursday. Expect it to be very different from Tessa Jowell's offering in March 2005, which started from a very different premise to events of the last week.

"Through opinion polls, focus groups, public meetings and our website we got the views of thousands of listeners, viewers and online users. Their views – your views – were very clear. The BBC is liked and trusted by millions. Its services are valued and enjoyed. It is seen as having a vital role to play in news and in sustaining and informing our democracy. The principles of public service broadcasting (PSB), with the BBC at its heart, are widely understood and widely supported. And although people in their millions are embracing the rapidly expanding choices offered by digital broadcasting they still see the BBC as having a key role in the multi-channel future. If anything, people see maintaining PSB as more important, not less, as more and more commercial services crowd on to the scene...."

"The BBC should remain a cultural institution of real size and scope. It should not only be a broadcaster of minority interest programming. It should provide a wide range of different programmes to a wide range of different audiences. Only with this scale and scope can the BBC meet the ambitious public purposes that have been set for it."

"Three out of four people support the current range of BBC services and there are no plans to require the BBC to shut down or privatise any of them. But the size and shape of the BBC must be allowed to change over the next ten years as the market, technology, public opinion and consumer behaviour change around it."

A little loaded ?

John Whittingdale's eight outriders on Charter renewal...

Dame Colette Bowe, 68 (Notre Dame Liverpool, Bsc/PhD Economics Queen Mary London, and MSc Economics LSE). Civil servant who left after the Westland Affair, but came back big in public life eventually to chair Ofcom. It might not help, but she says she owes her entire career to Maurice Peston, Robert's dad, who let her switch to economics from French at Queen Mary. Liverpool fan, who also plays the cello.

Last year, she came out in favour of 'contestability' - "I have got sympathy with the idea that some more of the funding currently available for public service broadcasting should be contestable. Because on the whole I am on the side of the people in the sector who believe that what we need is even more competition and dynamism and innovation than we have got."

Dawn Airey, 54 (Kelly College Tavistock and BA Geography from Girton, Cambridge) has moved via ITV and Sky from CEO Channel 5 ("films, football and f**king") to senior vice-president Yahoo, EMEA. Nicknames have included Scairey Airey and Zulu Dawn.

In 2009, while still at 5, she mused to the Daily Telegraph thus “Perhaps the BBC should go back to having a couple of big broadcast channels, a couple of radio stations with a clearly defined remit and a reduced licence fee to support that. And all the other things that it may do are still there but you have to pay for them."

Shazam executive chairman Andrew Fisher, 45 (Millfield and BSc Economics, Loughborough University) took the music-identfying-app to new levels of second-screen advertising, with investors like Al Gore and Carlos Slim. I can find no record of opinions about the BBC.

Arts Council England boss Darren Henley OBE, 42 (St Edmund's Canterbury and BA Politics, Hull University) spent 20 years working his way up at Classic FM, from overnight newsreader to MD. Gilingham FC season ticket holder.

Last year, while still at Classic, he wrote to the Telegraph thus: "Without a penny of public money, Classic FM reaches an audience of around 5.5 million people every week, over two and a half times more than its subsidised competitor, Radio 3. Meanwhile, Radio 3 and the BBC orchestras are handed £83.5 million of public licence-fee funding each year. Mr [Roger] Wright’s recent editorial changes move Radio 3 even further away from its previous distinctive position... The BBC appears intent on moving its network into the space occupied by a commercial radio competitor in a market of only two stations."

Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield, 49 (Elizabeth College, Guernsey, RGS High Wycombe and BA Business Computing Systems, City University). Begetter of the BBC's failed Digital Media Initiative and launcher of the iPlayer, his current position is lead newspaper attack dog against BBC websites, in particular local stuff.

In February he wrote "When I first read the BBC’s Future of News report last week I’m not sure what depressed me most - the inflammatory language used, the misguided sentiment behind it, or the fact that the BBC intends parking a tank on every local lawn and offering its version of hyper local news controlled from London W1A."

Former Shine Group chief executive Alex Mahon, 41 (St Margaret's Edinburgh, PhD Physics, Imperial, Harvard Business School). Shine was the child of Elizabeth Murdoch.

Digital entrepreneur Lopa Patel, 51 (BTEC Tottenham College of Technology and BSc Manchester). Her wesbites include asianpowercouples.com, redhotcurry.com; and she's a founding trustee of DiversityUK. In that role, she's been on BBC World and BBC London this year, perhaps with a little help from Curzon PR.

Oooh look! I'm in the @MayfairTimes thx to @FarzanaBaduel @CurzonPR https://t.co/ZB3cjTJ2VW

— Lopa Patel (@lopapatel) June 1, 2015

Journalism professor Stewart Purvis CBE, 67 (Dulwich College and BA Exeter) a former editor-in-chief of ITN, joined the BBC as one of its first news trainees in 1969.  He's a member of the board of Channel 4, which may prove a conflict.

In 2000, while at ITN, he threatened to take the BBC to the OFT and European authorities for distributing online news for free.

Fixed ?

BBC DG Lord Hall has set out an upbeat view of the licence fee poker game in a comment piece for the Guardian/Observer.

One important point: in his view, in future you'll require a licence to watch catch-up tv on any device. "The government will modernise the way we define a TV licence so that people will need one to use services such as BBC iPlayer."

One omission - no mention of promises either way on de-criminalising non-payment of fines imposed for licence evasion. So naughty iPlayer users might not feel that obliged to pay up, potentially growing the percentage of dodging 'households'. I find it very difficult to imagine this system really working without encryption - still the thin end of a wedge pushing us to a BBC based on subscription.

"Now that we have fixed the funding settlement", Tone confidently continues. Not, I think, in John Whittingdale's mind we haven't. He's interested in 'scope' - directing the BBC as to the sort of programmes and channels it should make and operate. Smaller scope = reduced funding.  And if the Chancellor says "Leave it. John - I really promised", then he'll be more determined to clip the BBC's entertainment wings in favour of duller stuff, to suit his friends and advisers from the commercial sector. La lutte continue, as we say in Islington.

Lordly

The Guardian spotted BBC DG Lord Hall, at the end of his septimana horribilis, taking tea in the Upper House with Conservative peer Lord Inglewood.

Lord Inglewood, otherwise William Richard Fletcher-Vane (Eton, Trinity Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn) is a former MEP, a former Tory Whip in the Lords, and one-time minister in the Department of National Heritage. Most recently he has been chair of the Lords Communications Select Committee.

His ancestral home is Hutton-in-the Forest, just off the M6 north of Penrith. He's non-executive chair of the CN Group, running newspapers and radio stations in Cumbria. DG-manque Caroline Thomson is also a non-executive director.

Earlier this year, Lord Inglewood opined that the BBC Trust was a "botched reform". He may be a useful ally for Lord Hall within the modern Conservative Party that is currently teasing him so naughtily in the media playground.

Lord Inglewood: Essential that politics is kept apart from decisions on BBC regulation and governance #citybeeb

— City Journalism (@cityjournalism) March 26, 2015

Just say no

Just as the BBC Press Office has been Twittering with slightly enhanced "cojones" (as Americans and Spaniards might say"), Auntie's attitude to Freedom of Information inquiries has toughened up over recent months.

This may be due to the appointment of barrister Nicola Cain to the new title of "Head of Legal - FOI and Contentious DP".  In which, I hope, FOI means Freedom of Information, and DP means Data Protection. Or we're all in trouble.

Nicola (Arnold School, Blackpool, Brunel and UCL) already has an impressive CV in BBC media wrangles, winning Times 'Lawyer of the Week' in 2012. She's provided guidance in the Pollard Review, Panorama's programme on the Fake Sheikh, the attempted Judicial Review by the DUP in the recent election, the BBC v Harper Collins in the matter of The Stig (where Auntie lost), and the long running battle with solicitor Stephen Sugar over access to the The Balen Report, the internal review of the BBC's Middle East coverage.

Knocking out a few terse refusals to FOI anoraks should be no problem.  

Stray

Below, former BBC DG, now NYT CEO, Mark Thompson attempting to channel Robert Redford with the movers and shakers in Sun Valley. I don't really understand what he's on about - after a couple of minutes all I could look at was the white eyebrow strand that had escaped his trimmer... Go large, if you can, to marvel.

Nervous times

Anyone else detecting a post-Election squeeze on some luvvies ?  John Berry, artistic director of the English National Opera, had a twitchy start to 2015, but seemed to have survived, thanks to various luminaries rallying round. Now, apparently, it's the right time to resign.

Camila Batmanghelidjh, flamboyant founder and director of Kidsco, supported by Chris Martin, J K Rowling, Michael McIntyre and Sting, last week stepped aside from the CEO role, after threats to Government funding. Noises had been coming from Tory sources pre-election.

Who's next ?

Going Bush

King's College, thwarted earlier this year in some of its property ambitions, is leasing the four main buildings that comprise Bush House, the re-furbished former home of the BBC World Service.

The move into Bush House, Melbourne House, Strand House and King House  - now marketed as The Adwych Quarter - will be phased from September next year.  The new buildings will be used for "student study and social space, new teaching facilities and academic accommodation".  Groovy pads for the dons ?

Never one for understatement, Aussie Prof Eddie Byrne, who still refers to the College just as 'King's' , says 'This acquisition represents a defining moment in the history of King’s. We aim to consolidate our position as a top 20 global university by providing world class education and research facilities.'

Steady

Apologies for being a little late on the case, but the annual report for MG Alba, running BBC Alba, came out in late June. It reports a weekly reach of 72.6% amongst Gaelic speakers, up from 72.4% last year, and above target of 70%. Reach across Scotland has fallen from 17.6% to 16.2%.

The report says MG Alba received £13.2m in grants from the Scottish Government, and £1m from the UK Government. The contribution made by the BBC isn't mentioned in cash terms, but the Auntie produces around half the tv programmes, in terms of hours. In 2013/4 the cost of that content was £5.2m. The cost per viewer hour across the UK stood at 6.4p - just behind the unaffordable BBC3, at 6.9p.

Worth a read

This blog brought you first news of cogitations by BBC News management about the future of the News Channel on June 30.  It seems, sadly, they are still cogitating.

Yesterday, the first public 'friend' of the threatened service surfaced, with a thoughtful article about its importance from Roger Mosey, former boss of BBC TV News and Editorial Director, in the Guardian.

Within the hour, the network's best-known presenter, Huw Edwards, mused idly, head fully exposed above the parapet, to 28.5k followers, thus....

Worth a read: The BBC News Channel must be saved http://t.co/NcOwnI250Q

— Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) July 9, 2015

It's a live issue within The News Factory, and tensions are running high. James Harding's favoured idea remains moving BBC World News fully into the UK transmission slots currently occupied by BBC News. World News' advertising slots would then have short bits of 'News About Britain'. There is no plan to "move BBC News online", only to argue that the UK audience can already get more news online. A poor argument, that could be applied to BBC World News too.

I'm afraid also that BBC World News, despite more funding, remains a service of variable quality and vacillating editorial lines.  Since the demise of the World Service Centre Desk, it's had to develop international running orders without that steadying guidance, built up through years of "seen it before" sagacity.  Instead of a sure-footed agenda, it follows perceived peak audiences around the world clock. Sky News, with much less to spend on international news, has a better reputation with UK audiences for coverage of foreign stories. That's probably not at risk if this move goes ahead.

What is at risk is daily Westminster coverage, and once lower-ranking ministers and backbench MPs notice that their favourite practice ground is closing, there will be more snapping at Harding's ankles.
His judgement is losing him allies in many directions. Admirable though the ambition of the Victoria Derbyshire show is in uncovering a different UK agenda, rather a lot of News Channel money has been spent in delivering that vital "Homes Under The Hammer" audience without success on the channel or BBC2.

If the News Channel is to be a collection of newsy-type shows, save it by adding Newsnight, The Daily Politics, This Week and Question Time. That is, of course, the wrong answer. With the scale of the BBC's reporting resources, a channel that covers important UK stories and vital global events as they happen should be a given. And it's more than disappointing that James Harding doesn't get that.
 

Flutter

If anyone can point me to a bookmaker with a book, I'd lump a whole fiver on Laura Kuenssberg becoming the first female political editor of the BBC. If only because it makes Ian Katz's budget cuts easier.

One Valerie made earlier....

Back to business: Lord Hall's request for 1,000 additional job cuts has been pushed onto his lieutenants, who are scratching their heads in the hunt for an appropriate number of senior managers to put in the mix, to be produced by the end of the month.

Some 400 staff are on the official senior management grades, so this is about lieutenants firing lieutenants. Tony won't be happy unless at least 40 are identified, and his new HR sidekick Valerie Hughes D'Aeth has to make sure there's no taking real programme-makers out - or shuffling jobs down the scale.

So once again, support is the name of the game. Earlier this year the BBC parted company with Karl Burnett, who had been running HR for both News and Radio. He was on a package of £157,800. There are now separate HR bosses for News and Radio. I wonder what their salaries total, and whether there's a senior management saving to be had ? Why don't you come on over, Valerie ?

Recognition

Congratulations to Kate Russell, reporter for BBC tech show Click, on being named at Number 25 in Computer Weekly's list of the 50 most influential women in UK IT 2015.

Given the scale of the BBC's technology/digital/engineering operation, it's disappointing the Corporation hasn't got a practitioner in the list, nor in the supporting "rising stars" list.

Little things

• 5.372 million people work in the public sector, according to the June figures- more than one in five of those in employment. Their pay rises have been capped to 1% over each of the next four years by George Osborne's Budget. That's less than the forecasts for the Government's favoured measure of inflation, the CPI. 
• The Chancellor has introduced a living wage baseline of £7.20 an hour for all workers aged 25 and over, starting in April next year. He told us he expects it to rise to £9 by 2020. That's an increase of 25% over four years. 
• Is there a logical difference for a minimum wage refuse collector/careworker/coffee maker to earn more more at 25 than at 21 ?
• The Government is pushing ahead with the sale of Lloyds Bank, the student loan book, and what remain of Northern Rock's mortgage business. The OBR estimates this at £20bn, but notes:  Over the long term... the net impact of asset sales on net debt is significantly less than the sale price.  
• The Budget produced £26.6bn of tax cuts, yet £47.2bn of tax hikes.

Getting worse...

And the 10% cut the BBC faces in cash terms over the next five years is really a cut of 19.9%, says the Office for Budget Responsibility, even with more licences and a CPI link.......

Our forecast for BBC licence fee receipts has been revised up by around £0.1 billion a year from 2016-17 onwards, reflecting a small increase in our assumption of the proportion of households who are licence fee payers. This partly reverses a larger downward change we made in March. Our forecast for licence fee receipts is not affected by the Budget decision to stop reimbursing the BBC for the cost of free TV licences for over-75s. 

Based on the evidence presented to us by the Treasury, we have certified the Government’s costing and have therefore reduced our BBC spending forecast by amounts rising from £0.2 billion (5.0 per cent) in 2018-19 to £0.7 billion (17.7 per cent) in 2020-21. Chart 4.12 shows the pre- and post-measures forecasts for BBC current spending in real terms. The forecast assumes that the licence fee rises in line with CPI inflation over the period of the next charter, beginning in 2017-18, on which basis real spending would fall by 19.9 per cent between 2015-16 and 2020-21, compared to a 0.8 per cent real fall in assumed total public services spending over the same period.