Grimmy

The second episode of XFactor 2015 attracted just 4.88m viewers overnight (excluding HD and +1, which boosted it to 6.47m). That compares with 7.48m with the same exclusions for the same slot last year.

Never mind what happens when Strictly starts, Simon, Cheryl, Rita and Nick were beaten by the BBC's hospital warhorse first fielded in 1986, Casualty, with a clunky, contrived 'event' four-part special, notching up 4.92m in the overnights.

Danny Greenstone

Radio and tv producer Danny Greenstone has died, after a heart attack. Danny joined the BBC in 1969, straight from Beal Grammar School for Boys, as a filing clerk in the newspaper cuttings operation known as "News Information", based just behind Broadcasting House in Duchess Street.

By 1973, he'd made it to Radio Light Entertainment. In 1977 he worked with John Lloyd on what became The News Quiz, though Danny wanted to call it "Keep Taking The Tabloids". Danny's other radio creations included Wit's End, Medium Dry Sherrin, Beadle's Nightcap and The Law Game, for Radio 2, and Old Took's Almanac, which went out on World Service and Radio 2.

Thence to London Weekend Television, where he worked on Surprise Suprise, Game For A Laugh and Child's Play. He was part of the team that brought the UK’s first series of Pop Idol to your screens, and was also involved in the creation of Ant & Dec's PokerFace.

In 2008, he went the other side of the mike, for a weekly show on BBC Three Counties. He was about to direct a West End stage version of The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town, written by Spike Milligan and Ronnie Barker, due to open in October.

Danny, standing, with Margaret Thatcher in the cubicle
for a recording of Old Took's Almanac

Natural aptitudes

Musing on how the BBC might have "mapped" the talent of 3,000 managers, I tried a random scan of "BBC" and "Talent" on Linkedin, and came up with a range of exciting titles. Some of their owners might have moved on - but I've left out most plain "Talent Managers" and "Talent Co-ordinators". There's probably, I'm guessing, more people branded "Talent Something Or Other" in the BBC than bother to join the funfest that is Linkedin.

Is this HR and Recruitment, hiding under a new, sexier title - or a whole new genre of staff ?

Talent Manager, BBC Factual Production
Talent manager for consumer/live programmes and The One Show - BBC Factual London
Talent Manager (on-air), BBC Sport
BBC Comedy Talent Manager 
Head of New Talent, BBC Academy
Director of Talent, BBC TV at BBC
Talent Advisor - Future Media, myBBC
Talent Advisor - BBC Digital at BBC
Head of Production Talent Entertainment Events & Comedy
Talent Executive at BBC Television 
Head of Talent Management at BBC Television
Head of Production Talent, Drama at BBC Television
Talent Manager, BBC Production Talent Network (Factual)
Talent Manager - Children's at BBC
Talent Coordinator BBC Learning at BBC
Talent Manager, Natural History Unit, BBC Production Talent Network
Talent Manager (Sport Online, Interactive, News and Radio) BBC Production Talent Network 
Talent Manager and Executive Coach at BBC 
Talent Acquisition Specialist - BBC
Head of Production Talent, Wales at BBC Resourcing & Talent Development 
Business Partner, BBC North Editor, On-air Talent - BBC North (Development and Events)  
BBC Docs Talent Manager 
Head of Talent, BBC Comedy at BBC 
Head of Talent & Editorial Operations, BBC Scotland 
Talent Manager, Drama at BBC 
Head of Production Talent, Natural History, Features, Daytime, BBC Television

Are we taking Scotland seriously ?

Just over a week until we get the BBC's first positive paper on Charter Renewal. Will it address The Scottish Question ?

Two thoughtful pieces worth a longer read today - Brian Wilson in The Scotsman.

Ms Sturgeon assured her Edinburgh audience that “independence from government is essential to our public service broadcasters”. This may have caused wry smiles among those who are harassed on a daily basis to comply precisely with the agenda of government. Practising what one preaches is a useful starting point in changing perceptions. But the bigger problem in Scotland is that the phrase “independence from government is essential to…” could be applied in so many contexts where the exact opposite has evolved in practice. There is now no branch of Scottish civic or public life dependent on Edinburgh largesse or patronage that can remotely be described as “independent from government”. Why would broadcasting, the prize target, be different?

And Pat Kane in The National.

I enjoyed the brilliant, likeable – still evidently Glaswegian, but also pretty establishment – Armando Iannucci and his Mactaggart Television Lecture. But as you listen, it’s easy to imagine the case for Scottish channels being drowned in the grander storm of liberal-left and conservative UK elites, battling mightily for the “soul of the Beeb”. 

That’s what happens when you don’t vote to become a nation-state: all that’s left is supplication and reasoned argument to the centre, mostly likely resulting in a head-pat and a “terribly sorry”. And there you can bundle up BBC Scotland reform with lots of other devolutionary frustrations. But, of course, there’s more to Scottish media than pining after Pacific Quay with an SBC badge on it.

Self-improvement

It's always useful to devote part of a Bank Holiday weekend to something instructional, say, on career development. Why not immerse yourself in the BBC's Nine Box Grid, a talent mapping exercise which has been in operation since 2010, plotting the performance and potential of 3,000 managers across the Corporation ?

In at Number 5

Times' hacks have been adding up BBC expenses from published sources, and offer this analysis, placing Alan Yentob, of London W11, at position 5 in the Top Five of the past five years.

Out of 227 executives, only Ken MacQuarrie, head of BBC Scotland, Peter Johnston, director of BBC Northern Ireland, and David Holdsworth, in charge of the BBC’s local output in England, have larger claims in a  five-year period between April 2009 and 2014. 

Mr Yentob claimed £84,930.39, including three return flights between Heathrow and New York each costing more than £3,200. His taxi bills were £26,183.30, the second-highest among executives and he received another £18,505.43 for business entertaining. 

A BBC spokesman said: “Alan’s role as creative director and editing and presenting [the art series] Imagine requires significant travel, which inevitably incurs costs.”

And yet, indies would have to include editor and presenter expenses in their total costings. One would hate to thing that BBC staff expenses were distorting opportunities for our vibrant independent production companies to compete on a level playing field.

Apres moi, quoi ?

"It is time he went." The Daily Telegraph, two days ago.

"Mr Yentob’s position at the corporation is no longer tenable."   The Times, today.

Functioning

I've filleted a little from an interesting interview with Evan Davis (now with Newsnight and The Bottom Line, if you're wondering what happened to him). It's from a crowd-funded journalism website called Byline, and I found it via The Independent. Here's Evan's thoughts on the impact of social media, blogging and such stuff on the world of traditional journalists.

"I’m aware that there are dysfunctions in the market, and that this is an incredibly turbulent time Believe me, no one in the BBC is under any illusions, as we get year after year of slicing out money and finding fewer people to do the same job. It has been disrupted, very heavily disrupted. 

There are dysfunctions with a system of journalism built in a world of social media and we know what those dysfunctions are, people rushing to judgement about things without reading anything about them, feedback loops where the same inaccurate things are howled around as if they are true, hysteria, mob rule, excessive emphasis on clickbait, the polarisation of sources, right wing people only reading right wing bloggers, same on the left so people can't even agree on the tenants of debate; believe me there is a LOT wrong. 

But the truth is there is an explosion of information, there is a huge amount of holding to account, a huge variety of viewpoints for people to say stuff; I’m often impressed by what comes out in non-traditional journalistic sources. It is not a nice road to sunlit uplands, but it is what it is and I don’t think it is fair to say that society is losing a lively public sphere of debate, fact and reporting.

There are dysfunctions, but there were dysfunctions in the old model. If you want to read about the old model, read Scoop, the old Evelyn Waugh novel, which is a satire on it. There was a lot of bullshit in the old model, there is a lot in the new; we’ve all done our fair share of bullshit. But I will be confident that we are not in a dark place if we have a thriving eco-system of models of different journalists aiming to do different things. If it were just big proprietor newspapers I would worry. If it were just the Guardian burning through its endowment I would worry. If it were just the BBC I would worry. It is got to be a lot of different things out there, and at the moment we have that. 

Actually on my radio program, The Bottom Line, we had a program on the newspaper industry where we spoke to three business managers, people who are executives, not editors. They were from the Financial Times, which is just a brilliant product that has managed to move to monetize digital more successfully than the others, from the Guardian and from local papers. They all felt deep down that while the newspaper is in trouble, journalism isn’t."

Butter wouldn't melt....

The BBC's Information Policy and Compliance Team are getting a little cocky.

The resolute and persistent Spencer Count found pages on the website of The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, which carried a case study of a BBC HR process that mapped 3,000 managers into a nine-box grid, according to their performance and potential, or lack of both. Shortly after Mr Count's enquiry seeking further details from the BBC, the pages disappeared from the website. But they still could be found via a Google cache.

Now, spookily, those cached pages have gone, too. And the BBC writes to Mr Count, chuckling behind its hand, "In order to identify and locate the information that you have asked for we need you to clarify it further. The link you have provided below is no longer valid. Please can you respond with a valid link."

Misdirection, m'lud. If Mr Count wishes to provide a link to my original piece, as honest a piece of reporting as you can expect from a BBC pensioner, I'm happy. They can't kill my posts, can they ?

Anyway, the question still stands, and doesn't need clarification - did the BBC carry out such a piece of "talent mapping", and what records and data do they hold ?  Or are they going to pretend they can keep it between themselves and 3,000 staff ?

Central casting

They completed the missing genres for Strictly pretty much as I predicted. Boyband (ex member of The Wanted) filled by Jay McGuiness; Sport filled by boxer Antony Ogogo and sprinter Iwan Thomas; BAME boosted by Anita Rani and Jamelia.

Still missing after all that is hopeless 'national treasure', ideally over 60. We may have to do with just 'hopeless'.

Peter Andre is still a short favourite with most bookies, but my tip is Helen George, still available at 7/1. She was a Junior Associate with Birmingham Royal Ballet, before heading to stage school in Hertfordshire, then to Birmingham School of Acting. She followed that by winning the Ian Fleming Award to study musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. She graduated straight into the original cast for Lloyd-Webber's version of The Woman In White, and has toured with Disney's High School Musical.

Burger me

With many bosses awae' north of the border, BBC meat-eaters still in W1 should try new Great Titchfield Street eaterie Mac and Wild, which is offering its Venimoo burger at just £5 today and tomorrow, as part of its opening offer. Eat in, or take away to dribble two sorts of animal blood over your Syncopatico workstation.

Alternative comedian

It's likely the second big name Scot to take the platform at the Edinburgh TV Festival will have more traction in Charter Renewal. Nicola Sturgeon, 45, from Irvine, follows Armando Ianucci, 51, from Glasgow today, as she presents an Alternative Taggart Lecture to Armando's Big Night Out.

She's clearly identified some opportunities. If you're breaking up the BBC Trust anyway, why not create a successor with a federal structure ?  If you're giving up BBC3 as a broadcast channel, why not give the unused spectrum to Scotland ? If Radio 4 and Radio 5Live only really penetrate England, why can't we have two national radio networks in Scotland ?

She's upping the ante way beyond those who argue that the licence fee must be spent where it is raised (cf The Midlands) to a level that says 'nations' must have some sort of parity of service with that offered to the wider UK, The bit she doesn't quite get is that, within the Osborne deal, that sort of "rebalancing" can only be achieved by taking bigs lumps out of the UK-wide budget.  And both Scotland and the UK will end up with a diminished service.

Braces

BBC Director of News James Harding travels to Edinburgh this week, to appear on a panel at the Guardian TV Festival. Men of such stature don't want to travel with nothing to say, so the BBC has announced that it is going to appoint a Scotland Editor, with a job ad in the next few days, and an appointment in October.

Presumably a Wales Editor and Northern Ireland Editor will follow. Then, in 2016, an England Editor. Then, in 2017, after pressure from Birmingham MPs and newspapers, a Midlands Editor.

Imagining

Early draft....

Presented by Alan Yentob, BBC One’s flagship arts strand returns this winter with an impressive line-up, profiling a fascinating and diverse array of creative talent: Alan joins novelist Howard Jacobson re-imagining Shakespeare's Shylock in Venice; Rachel Johnson, Stephen Frears, Hanif Kureishi, Mariella Frostrup, Anish Kapoor and David Gilmour consider Notting Hill's role as the UK's creative hub; Alan revisits "A Cracked Actor", his seminal David Bowie documentary, 50 years on, just two years after Imagine last revisited it. Alan will also pay tribute to the work of BBC2 documentary strand Arena, which Alan didn't actually start, but nearly did, 50 years ago. 

Note to Editors: This is Alan's last series as Editor and Presenter of Imagine, and Alan will also be stepping down from his role as BBC Creative Director at the end of the year. This follows Lord Hall's re-structuring of senior management across the BBC, where people paid over £180,000 have to demonstrate that they're actually responsible for something. Anything. 

Returns

Famous DJs celebrate Steve Wright's birthday

Panacea

Might there have been a way of avoiding rioting ?

Tales of deprivation

Who knows ?

Dame Janet Smith may have finished her report on goings-on at the BBC, but still reads the papers.

So when the Mail said the findings "are secretly circulating among BBC bosses – but have yet to be shown to victims", the Smith team issued a rebuttal. 

"In advance of publication of the Report, any comments about the Review’s findings are premature and speculative and are not endorsed by the Review. Further, the Review confirms that the Report has not been provided to the BBC."

So Mail sources saying the report "tears the BBC apart", and is "much worse than expected" are put in a difficult position.

• 11.10 update Former Newsnight producer, Meirion Jones, without whom all this wouldn't have started, points out that those about to be criticised in the full report may have been in receipt of so called "Salmon letters", giving them a chance to respond ahead of full publication. 

You can square over-hyped @MailOnline & Janet Smith if (as normal) Salmon letters sent to those criticised #Savile https://t.co/LbPPBsBkHl

— Meirion Jones (@MeirionTweets) August 25, 2015

Presentation skills

It looks like the collapse of KidsCo is going to be a sideshow for at least a year. According to The Mail, new Public Accounts Committee   Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs chair Bernard Jenkin is planning to make it one of his first topics for inquiry.

Eurosceptic Bernard will be keen to build on the publicity acquired by Margaret Hodge, in her conduct of the higher profile PAC. Time to start coaching Yentob.

• The FT asked the Met Office if it might take legal steps over the BBC decision to drop it from the current list of tenderers for Auntie's weather contract "Yes, it is something we are considering,” said operations director Steven Noyes. Odds against, I'd say.

Not Mary

Chris Whitehouse, eponymous chairman of a Westminster PR consultancy, likes a little mischief-making.

He's commissioned a UK poll from Comres which apparently shows that 52 per cent of the public support the idea of replacing the BBC licence fee with advertising, even if it means reduced original programming or an end to the BBC’s public service obligations, with 34% opposing the idea.

He did the same this time last year, when 51 per cent of the public supported "Abolishing the licence fee and making the BBC fund itself, even if that means adverts during programmes, reducing the number of original programmes they can produce or scrapping their public service broadcasting duty". Again 34% opposed that suggestion.

In this year's survey, 41% positively wanted to keep the licence fee, up from 40% last time.

Chris is Conservative Councillor for the Newport West Ward on the Isle of Wight,

There's more than a whiff of desperation about the campaign to "save" the #BBC, methinks.

— Chris Whitehouse (@CllrWhitehouse) July 15, 2015

Exclusive ?

The BBC says this season it's started broadcasting live commentary on Premier League football matches across Africa, in French, Hausa, Somali and Swahili. There's no mention of how this is funded.

TalkSport still describes itself as the "global audio partner" of the Barclays Premier League, offering commentaries in French, Portguese, Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, 'Chinese', Thai, Vietnamese, Malay, Indonesian and 'Nigerian'.

Can they both be right ?

A tenner ?

The Telegraph says BBC execs heading to the Edinburgh TV Festival later this week have a briefing document from Price Waterhouse Cooper, to help them pepper their platform performances with financial factoids.

PWC have apparently calculated that every £1 of licence fee investment "leads to an additional or net increase of 60p in GDP/ economic value". So, a 25 per cent cut in the licence fee over the next five years would cut GDP by £630 million and lead to 32,000 job losses. Conversely, a 15 per cent increase in the licence fee over five years would boost GDP by £319m and create 16,200 jobs.

These various percentages are presumably not selected randomly. In theory, the licence fee is set to rise with CPI for the next five years, as part of the Osborne deal, subject, apparently, to Charter decisions on the BBC's scope. Thus the 25% scare figure.

At the upper end, guessing CPI at a crude 2% p.a. over five years from 2017, the 15% rise figure suggests the BBC may be seeking a licence fee that starts the five years at around £155.

Highs and lows

Some mixed opinions in this morning's papers about the Met Office losing out in the current tender process to supply the BBC with "weather services".

The Mail, which might have harrumphed, takes the value-for-money line: "It's been a difficult decision after such a long relationship but it's undoubtedly the right one. If the BBC feels it can get a better quality and value service elsewhere, it is duty-bound to try."

For an entertaining view, from a range of absolutely contradictory positions, try The Mail's current Met expert Quentin Letts, with his research funded by the Radio 4 wing of the BBC for a recent programme, "What is the point of the Met Office ?"  The catch-up service now carries an explanatory note which warns some contributors may be off-scientific consensus on climate change - Mr Letts may not have noticed yet...

The Times editorial team saw the Met Office's plight as a chance for oblique humour. "This leaves a window of opportunity, however narrow, for Broadcasting House to see sense and outsource this service not to the best weather forecaster but to the forecaster of the best weather...Britain’s weather is less predictable, as our forecasters constantly remind us by failing to predict it. Generally speaking, this doesn’t matter. Being caught out in the rain is part of being British. This being so there is surely a market opportunity for a forecaster who compensates for inaccuracy not with apologies after the event but optimism before it."

One element so far unconsidered: the tender process, required of the BBC by European law embedded by the Government, started back in May/June 2014, and isn't finished yet. No chance of a simple, cost-effective decision, uncluttered by red tape, eh ?

Counsel

When it finally becomes public, the Dame Janet Smith Review into Savile-related bad stuff at the BBC will demonstrate the questioning skills of her chosen leading counsel, Christina Lambert, QC.

Christina, whose parents were both GPs, went to Central Newcastle High School, then studied history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before heading home to join a publishing company where she indulged her love of modern poety for three years. Then followed a diploma in law at City University, and a call to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1988. She took silk in 2009, and has specialised in medical negligence cases.

In 2010, she unsuccessfully defended George Osborne's brother Adam in front of the GMC for some unorthodox prescribing. (En passant, Adam was suspended again by the GMC in March this year).

The call to the Janet Smith review came in October 2012, and Christina was pretty fully engaged, but still found time to weekend at her cottage in Chatton, near Alnwick “I feel my blood pressure drop as I go further and further north” she told an interviewer.

Since her part in the process was completed, she's been leading counsel to the fresh Hillsborough inquests, which provided a much more public platform for her cross-examination skills.

Storm clouds in Exeter

The Sunday Times (paywalled) says the BBC is about to buy its weather service from someone other than the Met Office. Ben Bradshaw, MP for Exeter, where the Met Office has been based following the move from Bracknell in 2003, has been outraged since Friday.

1/Extremely alarmed by rumours BBC to drop UK Met Office in favour of foreign weather forecaster. Vital 90 year old strategic relationship.

— Ben Bradshaw (@BenPBradshaw) August 21, 2015

2/Not only weather forecasting. Shipping forecast, extreme weather/crisis events/national defence. Madness if true. Govt must intervene

— Ben Bradshaw (@BenPBradshaw) August 21, 2015

Service contracts don't last forever, and the BBC, as a public body, is obliged to follow European law on tendering. The contract last came up for renewal in 2010, when New Zealand operation METRA is thought to have run the Met Office close. Since then METRA has picked up contracts to supply broadcasters in Italy, Ireland, Finland and The Netherlands. Another likely bidder is MeteoGroup, which started in The Netherlands, won investment from the Press Association, and is now in the hands of US private equity group General Atlantic, who have made strategic investments in Uber, Buzz Feed and Air B'n'B.  It won the Sky News contract in 2011.

Other regulations mean the Met Office has to sell on its data at fair prices, so a new BBC contractor should have no problem with access, if it needs it. The competition is more likely to be around innovation in graphic techniques and online offerings. And probably the only other sufferers, other than the Met Office, will be the forecasters, most of whom are likely to be TUPE'd across to a new employer, which is never fun.

Making the wool thicker

The BBC has pencilled in Monday 7th September to make its case for Charter Renewal. But will it be a case for the defence, spelling out what the Corporation can afford to do under the Osborne funding deal, or a call for more investment, essential to maintain a meaningful relationship with the media habits of 21st century licence-fee payers ? Or will there be a new "Big Idea" ?

Expect plenty of "ambition", "creativity", "cohesion" and "value" in the presentation. Having threatened to close BBC2, BBC4, local and national/regional radio in the poker game with Osborne, dare Lord Hall offer the prospect of new services ? I think not. Here will come old favourites "quality" and "distinctive".

The TV problem is that the current BBC commissioning pipeline fills up the gaps between programmes of quality and distinction with five-day-a-week quizzes, cheap observational series, endless get-rich-quick-shows about houses, antiques and auctions, and just too much cooking. That and repeats from the days when BBC commissioning was more sure-footed and in tune an audience outside London. A further retreat from weekday daytime spending wouldn't be a bad move - you could probably still beat ITV with a mix of children's, OU and repeats, properly "curated". Later in the schedules, we have an apparent aversion to old-style, more thoughtful fillers - in the style of "All Our Yesterdays", "The Brains Trust", "Late Night Line-Up", and "Face The Music".

The network radio problem is overheads. The cheapest radio programmes require one microphone and one voice. Yet BBC Radio, in its perpetual desire not to be done down by Vision/Television, has accrued over the years, television-style layers of senior producers, executive producers, assistant editors, editors, departmental management and over-arching production management. I don't expect any big moves here - these managers have already convinced the Trust "you can't possibly do comedy and drama cheaper", and will argue that maintained spending is vital for Tory acquiesence to a decent licence fee.

Something's got to give.

• September 7th is the Feast Day of St Anastasius the Fuller, patron saint of fullers and weavers. Fulling is the process of cleaning wool and then making it thicker, often involving the use of tenterhooks. 

Court report

The Charity Commission has upgraded its investigation into what went wrong at Kids' Company from a "live compliance case" to a statutory inquiry.

"In light of the intense public scrutiny and speculation over the charity’s activities, and the increasing number of allegations in the public domain about its governance and financial management, the Commission has now formalised its engagement in a statutory inquiry in order to investigate and put on the public record whether or not these allegations are found to be true.”

Meanwhile Matthew Stone, senior examiner and deputy official receiver at the Insolvency Service, has been appointed as the Official Receiver for Kidsco at a hearing in the Companies Court division of the High Court. The appointment was made by Registrar Sally Barber, who regretted that an organisation with “good intentions should come to such an end..... regrettably it is now insolvent and all attempts at rescue and restructure have not worked”.

Europaplein

The IBC conference and exhibition, once again in Amsterdam, is broadcast techie heaven.

BBC Chief Technology Officer Matthew Postgate is a keynote speaker, but the BBC has so many in the full list of those taking the stage this September, that perhaps it should stage a conference of its own. They include (and I note a general lack of Postgate's preferred divisional title 'Engineering' in their job descriptions)...

Mike Armstrong, Senior R&D Engineer, BBC R&D
Andy Bocking, Head of Technology, BBC News
Tim Borer, Lead Technologist, BBC R&D
Andrew Cotton, Principal Technologist, BBC R&D
Lesley Johnson, Operations Director, BBC Worldwide
Muki Kulhan, Executive Digital Producer, The Voice
Andrew Murphy, Lead Research Engineer, BBC R&D
Nick North, Director of Audiences
Will Saunders, Creative Director of Digital, BBC
James Sandford, Research Technologist, BBC R&D
Professor Graham Thomas, Principal Technologist, BBC R&D
Philip Tudor, Principal Technologist, BBC R&D
Fran Unsworth, Director, BBC World Service
Mark Waddell, Lead Technologist, BBC R&D

Even newly-wed Andrew Neil is going, to chair a session. But then, he's a freelance.

Check list

Half way through the revelation of this year's Strictly Come Dancing contestants, and there are some obvious bases still to cover, if you're thinking of a flutter.

Sportsmen and women are so far lacking; bookmakers will give you 16/1 on A. P. McCoy, who's said already he wouldn't do the show 'for diamonds',  but I think the Irish quotient is already full anyway with Daniel O'Donnell - there are no sportswomen amongst their other quoted odds.

The bookies will give you 8/1 on pop singer Jamelia (to win, not just to enter), and that will help with the BAME quotient. But expect someone of Asian heritage as well.

Boybands are lacking (Peter Andre, subject to gym work, fills the gold chain and abs requirement which thrills some viewers and judges).

And then we need at least one just-over-60, who may also fill the criteria "lovable no-hoper", who is already a national treasure, or wants to be one.

The River of Newsnight

As well as the traditional broadcast version of Newsnight being curtailed for August (down to 30 minutes), the alternative online news service from its battery of correspondents, producers, assistant editors and editors is reduced from a river to a trickle.

Newsnight Live ('Updates and analysis throughout the day from the Newsnight team') has kept going with an odd daily original piece, a recorded clip of the previous night's show (live ?) and a silly season quiz. Not quite a live blog as we know it.

Four and five make...

Radio 4 and Radio 5Live are not meant to chase the same audience, but it is interesting to compare the gradual changes to their demographics.

The BBC Trust, in its latest review, has noted a lack of progress on the diversity of both stations' listenership and called for action.

The two tables below show 5Live losing young listeners and BAME audience at a faster rate than the station's general decline. BAME percentage in weekly reach is down to 6.7 over three years, whilst at Radio 4 it's actually a tad up, at 10.7.  At least at 5Live, they're losing ABC1s slightly faster than C2DEs. The Trust notes the move to Salford has yet to change the regional profile of the 5Live audience.

Still on 5Live, the Trust wants work to improve the news profile of a station that's supposed to devote 75% of its output to such stuff. I think you'll hear less of the slogan "The Home Of Football" quite quickly.

Finally, I have luvvie chums who will be delighted that the Trust exhorts Radio 4 to maintain spending on comedy and drama. This does, of course, mean others will suffer.

Me first

It's a 'thing', I know, but there is a certain sort of celebrity who complains on Twitter.

Hi @LauraAshleyUK my new table delivery only has three useable legs! Your customer care dept don't seem particularly interested...

— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) August 20, 2015

@VodafoneUKhelp Hello I'm having real problems with my mobile. Spoken to the Helpdesk but still not working. What are the next steps please

— Danny Cohen (@DannyCohen) August 18, 2015

I'm sure they'll let us know on Twitter how quickly their problems were solved.

Sorry

Alex Dyke returned to Radio Solent this morning, after a week's suspension for sharing with listeners his apparent dislike of mothers breastfeeding in public.



Entirely Not Suitable For Work (or minors), here's The Last Word's angry Aussie, Adam Hills with his take on the matter.

 

Band members

The BBC is looking for someone to join their HR team based in Birmingham, to deal with staff queries about payslips.

That's about all you need to know about the job, but in the way of the D'Aeth approach to personnel matters, you have to write it up...

"This role will be part of a team providing transactional, administrative and advisory services to the rest of the BBC. They will part of a shared service entity that will provide overall BBC People support to the BBC workforce. This role will provide HR advisory and support services to the workforce, frequently interacting with employees and problem solving/escalating queries. The role will need to use People systems and follow clearly defined processes in order to deliver transactional services to an agreed SLA."

The job specification also contains a new line - it's pitched at the existing Grade 5, but also defined as "Band 1". Putting jobs in bands is an easy way of getting to Lord Hall's wish of a 'simpler structure', with the good Lord presumably on Band 7. But if the grades inside the bands still exist, it's hardly job done....

Jollity Farm

BBC Director of Radio, and Queen-Elect of England, Helen Boaden may have been a bit too plain with NUJ representatives over a one-day strike by members working for the Asian Network in Birmingham.

According to the website BizAsia, she told the union side "“If the strike’s not a jolly, then why don’t you call it off?” I find myself imagining this in the tone of Joyce Grenfell as Sgt Ruby Gates in the Ealing Studios version of St Trinian's, though that makes it even harder to understand its import.

The dispute is over moving the drivetime show fronted by Bobby Friction to London, which apparently is more efficient than operating from Birmingham, and cutting an Editor post.

A BBC spokesperson told BizAsia “The Asian Network has undergone a staff restructure, prompted by the BBC’s ongoing efficiency savings. Of the two editors based in Birmingham, through a voluntary redundancy process we now have one. With the other remaining Editor post already based in London, in order to rebalance the programme responsibilities, one show is therefore moving to London. However, the station still broadcasts much of its output from Birmingham. We have conducted a thorough consultation process with the union over the post that is closing so it is disappointing they have chosen to take this action. No on-air output will be affected.”

The Lady

I hadn't spotted that Tory peer Baroness (she prefers Lady) Lucy Neville-Rolfe, our Minister for Intellectual Property, was also part of John Whittingdale's DCMS team with an interest in Charter Renewal..

Very keen to hear views on our BBC consultation paper. Try 2nd @DCMS blog http://t.co/8INM5tXV4m @UKHouseofLords pic.twitter.com/l6GxIIybBi

— Lady Neville-Rolfe (@LNevilleRolfe) August 19, 2015

I'm not sure whether the flowers and china are ministerial or domestic. Dame Lucy ('a range of convent schools' and PPE Somerville, Oxford) was a civil servant for 20 years, rising to be part of John Major's Policy Unit. Then she joined Tesco as a lobbyist. Ensuring that a wide range of views on the future of public service broadcasting are sought is good; we note that Dame Lucy was a non-executive director of ITV from 2010 to 2014.

Radio matters, too

I'm rather heartened by the revelation of the cards used by Lord Hall to get George Osborne to trim his depredations on the licence fee. According to Ray Snoddy, quoting the forthcoming book The BBC Today: Future Uncertain, Tony said the consequences, if unmitigated, would mean the closure of not just BBC2 and BBC4, but also BBC local radio and the radio services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Which of the above really brought George to re-think ?

Zac and Sarah

After 24 years with The Sun, Sunday Times and Times, most as a managing editor, Richard Caseby may have moved away from the creative writing skills that won him a 1st in English Language and Literature at Durham. Dubbed a 'pitbull' by The Guardian, he moved to become Director of Communications at the Department of Work and Pensions last year, and currently leads a government-wide project on The Modern Communications Team.

Maybe The Sun's "Dear Deidre Casebooks" were in someone's head when the Department sought to get the message across in leaflets about 'Zac' and 'Sarah' . These attempted to show what happens when claimants don't do what the DWP wants. The DWP has now dropped them admitting that the 'case studies' were not case studies, they were made up, and 'Zac' and 'Sarah' don't exist, except as headshots from photo-libraries.

Fillers

I can't yet find coverage on the BBC News wesbite - maybe it's in the Global Edition - but yesterday BBC World got a forty-page going over from Ofcom.

The channel identified, at Ofcom's request, 186 programmes it had broadcast between 2009 and 2011, all of which had been given to the BBC for free, or for a nominal £1 or so. Ofcom reviewed 75 of them.

It seems to me the BBC lost all round. Where, belatedly, the BBC agreed that the topics were 'current affairs', the rules state quite clearly that 'current affairs' programmes cannot be sponsored, whether credited or not. Where the BBC argued that the content was 'documentary' or 'recent history', a line of "Thanks to" in the credits was insufficient to demonstrate that the programme had been sponsored. Where the BBC might have thought taking 'free' programmes from NGOs, charities, or foundations was not the same as commercial sponsorship, the rules are quite clear - it counts in exactly the same way.

Ofcom said, because of the time that had past, it was largely pointless trying to work out whether these programmes were also in breach of rules on impartiality - but, over the pages of the report, it makes it clear that sponsoring organisations seemed to get favourable mentions in the course of a number of films.

I'm sure it'll get some BBC coverage today.

• 1130 Update: The BBC Trust have tweeted that they gave BBC World a going over in 2011 on many of the same programmes, and indeed Ofcom applauds the action taken to tighten things up. But Ofcom found more faulty programmes than the first Trust sweep.

More more more

I wonder what the BBC's Charter Renewal proposals will say about the Nations and Regions.

Today, the Welsh First Minister called for an extra £30m of licence-fee funding to be spent on his patch. The SNP want an extra £100m for Scotland; a group of Birmingham papers and associated MPs seem to want an additional £400m per annum spent in their region. Thankfully, I can find no mention of the BBC so far in Jeremy Corbyn's campaign pledges.

3.30pm Update: BECTU have elicited an arts/meejah statement from each of the four candidates.

Following up

The Charity Commission is conducting what it calls a "live compliance case" on Kids Company, saying its regulatory interest doesn't end with the charity's decision to cease operations on August 5. "We have been in almost daily regulatory contact with the trustees since [then]".

CEO Paula Sussex, in place at the Commission since last year, has said charities will no longer be given "the benefit of the doubt" under her regime. The Kidsco findings will be made public.

The Kidsco winding-up petition was formally filed by the charity’s trustees at court on Wednesday 12 August. The Charity Commission met Kidsco management and trustees on 9 July, 16 July and 21 July.

Linked in

The new Mrs Andrew Neil really was a consulting engineer in her Swedish past.

Susan Nilsson's cv shows that she worked for WSP giving advice on the construction phases of The Bridge, of fictional dead body fame, better known to locals as the Oresund Bridge. It provides an 8km road and rail link between Sweden and Denmark, first opened in 2000.

Sensitivity

BBC TV still doesn't 'get' the age issue. Sir Tom Jones has accused management of "sub-standard behaviour" in the way he was dropped from the judging panel of The Voice Series 5, with little, if any, notice, aged 75. He may have been unduly distracted by a Daily Star story that Will I Am was leaving, from August 9, which turned out to be wrong.

BBC Radio, in general, is more circumspect, and has perhaps learned more from the Countryfile/Miriam O'Reilly case. Look at the slow release of Sir Jimmy Young and Terry Wogan from weekday shows; look at the cluster of jobs afforded to Sue MacGregor and Jim Naughtie as they moved on from Today. Ideally, you make the move look like their decision, which, of course, it may be.

Will The Voice suffer ? We may see fewer poor Country and Western singers from Wales in the blind auditions, but I'm not sure who's going to jump at Boy George, 54, as a mentor. Interestingly, the average age of the new judging quarter is just over 41, compared with 35.5 for The XFactor.

• In other number-related news, Friday's 3rd Episode of Ripper Street Series 3 returned 2.74m million viewers, according to the overnight estimates - that's down nearly a million from the first episode. 

The price is right ?

One way of talent-mapping, beloved of the BBC, is the open market. Many  of Auntie's personalities are available for balls, dos and functions, at a price.

JLA claims to be the UK's biggest speaker agency, and has a wide range of clients, available in various price bands. Jeremy Vine and Katie Derham, soon to enrich John Whittingdale's public service broadcasting Saturday nights on Strictly, are currently in Band B - £5k to £10k for an event, alongside John Humphrys, Richard Bacon, Jeremy Bowen, and (stonking value) The BBC Big Band.

In Band A, at £10k to £25k, we fid Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce, Adrian Chiles, Gabby Logan and Lauren Laverne.

Then we have Band AA - £25k plus, where the 'BBC' names are Chris Evans and Lord Sugar. Pus, BBC World presenter Katty Kay - though that fee may include bringing her over from the States.

For those looking for a turn at lower rates, Band C, £2.5k to £5k features Justin Webb, John Craven, Nihal, Samira Ahmed, Fi Glover, Spencer Kelly and Victoria Derbyshire. Also in Band C is former BBC HR Director Lucy Adams.  Band D, £1k to £2.5k, has Jonty Bloom, Chris Lowe, Clive Myrie and Garry Richardson.

'BBC' names prepare to disport themselves for less than £1k in Band E are Lynn Bowles and Alan Dedicoat.

Friday music

If at work, and the bosses have gone, play loud. Otherwise headphones. Discovered through Craig Charles on Radio 2.

Rate my boss

Records = data = Freedom of Information inquiries.

The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education proudly carries a case study about the BBC on its website. It says "The human resources team have records showing that 3,000 people have been through the talent mapping process and have personal development plans in place....HR directors train and support senior managers to assess the managers under them and to put their names into one of the nine categories in a nine-box grid."

The nine categories, apparently all 'transparently' shared with those mapped, are, in descending order...

Star Performer
Strong Performer
Key Contributor
Rising Star
Core Performer
Acceptable Performer
Emerging Star
Marginal Performer
Unsatisfactory Performer.

The FOI hound who calls himself Spencer Count (say it out loud) is on the case.

Mixed messages

HQ to BBC local radion stations, July 2015 "We are at the point where we need to reinforce our role as a companion – with presenters and output that will cheer you up as we involve you in local life. Put simply we need to avoid stifling the personality in our output."

HQ to BBC Radio Solent, August 2015 "Suspend Alex Dyke".

With show features including "The Mouth of the South", 53-year-old father-of-three Alex shared his personal views on breast-feeding in public with listeners to his three-hour daily show on Wednesday.

"I blame the Earth mothers, you know the ones I mean, the ones with the moustaches, the ones who work in libraries, the ones who wear hessian, the ones they're always on Radio 4 on Women's Hour, they are always pushing the boundaries and making us feel uncomfortable. 

"Breastfeeding is unnatural. It's the kind of thing that should be done in a quiet, private nursery. 

"It was OK in the Stone Age when we knew no better, when people didn't have their own teeth... but now I just think a public area is not the place for it and fellas don't like it."

There was an immediate uproar on social media, but Alex was still on air on Thursday, with an apology: 

"Yesterday on the show I spoke about breastfeeding. The comments I made during the broadcast were unacceptable and I would like to apologise for any offence caused.”

Today, he's missing from the schedule, and the recording of Wednesday's show has been removed from the iPlayer. Alex has production support for his weekday output - see the first video on the show's Facebook page. Regular producer Alun Newman took charge at the microphone during Alex's recent break.

From his choice of retweets in his Twitter timeline, one might have guessed that Alex has a certain sort of personality.

Good to hear @ALEXDYKE1 a woman has to keep her man happy by cooking his breakfast in frilly knickers on @BBCRadioSolent this morning #funny

— keith hibdige (@keiththetrucker) April 17, 2015

Love @ALEXDYKE1 winding up mentally unstable cat owners. Dogs require effort cats don't, cat owners are lazy pet owners shoot em all.

— Tony Ryder (@try934) July 13, 2015

Laughing @ALEXDYKE1 on @BBCRadioSolent saying he was going the @MumsnetTowers saying that he and Alan Elbow Newman were women Sandy Dyke lol

— keith hibdige (@keiththetrucker) August 11, 2015

Big in Bedford

The Proms kept going, just about, through the Second World War.

The 1939 Season was abandoned after just three weeks. Having started, as usual, at the Queen's Hall on 12th August, Hitler's invasion of Poland came on 1st September, and broadcasting was put on a war-time footing. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Theatre Orchestra moved operational base to Bristol.

Henry Wood had to turn to the London Symphony Orchestra for the 1940 season, with the Proms opening during the Battle of Britain, but once again the season closed early in September. The Blitz started on the 7th, and London was bombed for 56 consecutive nights. The 7th September Prom was the last at the Queen's Hall - it was hit by a bomb in 10th May 1941, and destroyed in the subsequent fire.

The blitz also targeted "safe" Bristol from November 1940, but back in London, the 1941 Proms Season still started, as early as 12th July, at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time.  The London Symphony Orchestra shouldered the vast bulk of the work, with the whole orchestra or members featuring in all 37 Proms. Concerts started at 6.30pm, to avoid patrons going home in the full black-out.

Meanwhile in August 1941, the BBC deemed that Bristol was unsafe, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Theatre Orchestra were moved, in a specially-chartered train with buffet car, to Bedford, by a long and circuitous route to avoid London. Conductor Sir Adrian Boult, who was also BBC Director of Music, is said to have travelled by bike, breaking for lunch in Aylesbury.

The 1942 season opened at the Royal Albert Hall even earlier, on June 27, with the first 24 concerts featuring the London Philharmonic. But the BBC Symphony Orchestra travelled in from Bedford for the last 25.  The 1943 Proms went ahead with a similar 50/50 split, but with both orchestras coming together for the last night.

1944 was Henry Wood's 50th Anniversary with the Proms, and 55 concerts were scheduled, with,. once again the LPO taking the first half and the BBC SO the second. But, by 29th June, the threat from flying bombs in London was deemed too great a risk, and a number of the remaining concerts were moved from the Royal Albert Hall to the Corn Exchange in Bedford The pre-penultimate Prom was supposed to be Wood's Jubilee Event, but, aged 75, he fell ill after a conducting with the BBC SO in the Corn Exchange on 28th July, and listened to the special Jubilee programme from a hospital bed in Hitchin. Radio announcer Stuart Hibberd read a message from him to the audience 'Give my love to all my dear musicians and my dear friends of music. I am disappointed that I cannot be with them today, but tell them I shall soon be with them again and then we'll finish the Jubilee Season with a Victory Season.' He died nine days later.

Second City Thoughts

As the weather, if not the date, turns autumnal, we're heading into the traditional BBC season of industrial action; and it looks like the Asian Network will be the first to break the tape.

In a move that can only be described as puzzling, given Charter Renewal discussions about social cohesion, distinctiveness, serving communities, and regionalism, the Network is facing more cuts. There is apparently a saving to be made in moving late drivetime DJ Bobby Friction and an Editor from Birmingham to London. This looks odd - the Editor will surely cost more to run, because of London Weighting allowances. Bobby might be cheaper if, say, he lived in London, and we're paying to shuttle him to Brum. But the move flies in the face of commitments sought by the Birmingham press and MPs, and Lord Hall may not be happy on his return from Tuscany.

Measuring by content spend, the Network seems to have suffered by comparison with other stations in Bob Shennan's stable over the past five years. So a one-day strike has been called by the NUJ for next Wednesday.

10 hours a day

There's yet another consultation on closing BBC3 as a broadcast channel, and a big hole in the BBC Executive's plans. They'd hoped use the spare capacity for BBC1+1, but the Trust didn't rate that as good value. Now, Auntie's committed to running CBBC until 9pm in the old BBC3 slot - so there's a transmission window from 2100 to 0700 still available, and we're not allowed, at this stage, to share the BBC Executive's ideas on what they want to do with it. Which doesn't seem fair. Unless, of course, the ideas aren't very good. (Click to go large)

Was Lenin a customer ?

Readers in the London W1 area may like to know that the Cock Tavern on Great Portland Street has re-opened after a spruce-up, with new, cheerful landlords, and, if you're comfortable with the Sam Smith deal, it's worth a visit. The upstairs room could be useful for Christmas parties.

The first record of a publican on the site is from 1839, when the pub was just known as The Cock. The Cock Tavern first appears in records from 1882. The present building is the work of architects Bird and Walters, who built more than 70 pubs across the capital over 36 years from 1862, and altered many more. The Bird and Walters Cock emerged in 1897.

In April/May 1905 Lenin visited London for the meeting of Bolsheviks known as the 3rd Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Congress - venue/s still unknown - which he chaired. At the time, William Melville, formerly head of the Special Branch, was running a new intelligence department in the War Office, known as M03, later Mo5 (and MI5 in 1916). He used the services of a Special Branch detective Herbert Fitch to shadow Lenin and other delegates who were "holding covert meetings in pubs in Islington and Great Portland Street". Fitch never named the pubs, but a list typed by Melville in 1905 reads "The Duke of Sussex, 106 Islington High Street; the Cock Tavern, 27 Great Portland Street and The White Lion, 25 Islington High Street".

Raw footage

BBC News presenters are inured to the misbehaviour of robot cameras, forgetting that the code for the actions comes from their producers. However, I detected a note of schadenfreude in Ben Brown's commentary on a camera biting the dust last night...

Summer in the city

Funny old summer at Newsnight. The show seems to have been cut from 50 to 35 minutes for most of August, yet interviews are still "running out of time". In a BBC system where funds follow time on air, this seems an odd move by Ian Katz; it can hardly be said that the world's big problems have disappeared simply because favoured contacts of the show are, for example, in Tuscany or Cape Cod.

With less airtime to fill, the producers and correspondents left in London have been spotted enjoying the varied lunch venues of W1, in groups oddly split by gender. A clutch of Generation Katz young turks in matching white shirts and dark chinos clutching post-prandial posh coffees coming up your pavement is an intimidating sight.

Get Tom

Tom Loosemore, who did much to drive the BBC's online presence from 2001 to 2007, is on the market, having completed a similar spell with the Government's Digital Service - and maybe the BBC should snap him up again.

His farewell blog to Whitehall is instructive for what he's achieved, and where the blockers are, with praise for Francis Maude, and an interesting mention of Universal Credit.

The problem with the Government's interaction with citizens is complexity. The delivery of online services requires a simple offer, simply presented and easily understood; designing a front end puts existing complications into severe relief. Governments from way back have tweaked and twisted, rather than reformed. The best, and least trusted, offer from HMRC is "Let us calculate your tax for you". No, let's have a simple system that is straightforward and transparent. Then put a front end on that.

Tom seems to have picked that up.  He might be very useful in Charter Renewal and beyond.

Diagnosis

The Kids Company affair lingers on. Yesterday, an FT Editorial (Editor Lionel Barber oft tipped as a future DG) said "The charitable sector can only operate if trustees are alive to privileges their organisations enjoy and discharge their responsibilities assiduously. It is time Mr Yentob and his colleagues explained what they did, and did not do, in the case of Kids Company’s collapse."

This morning, a former Trustee Nigel Rowe wrote to the Telegraph, explaining he had resigned months into the role during 2006 "because of concerns that I had about the management of the charity, which I had previously expressed to its chairman." In the past three years, Kids Company had three different finance directors.

Alan Yentob had been chairman for 18 years; best practice is to serve no longer than 6. Mr Yentob was in his eighth year as Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts when it got into financial trouble in 2010. "I stayed because of the problems", he said when stepping down, acknowledging even then that best practice was six years in post.

In his Newsnight interview about the Kidsco collapse, Mr Yentob cited the LSE report of 2013 as an endorsement of the charity's work. It is, indeed, a document which praises the innovative approaches and methods of supporting children missed by other agencies; however there is a small section marked 'Challenges'...

• Limited and unstable funding is a major source of stress and anxiety for staff and a massive challenge for the sustainability of Kids Company.
• The interface with the statutory sector is a complex and considerable challenge, involving collaboration as well as constant tension due to divergent organisational cultures, different approaches to theory and practice, prejudices and preconceptions.
• An increase in bureaucracy and excessive management can jeopardise the effectiveness of Kids Company and presents a challenge to its ability to sustain absolute focus on the needs of its clients.

Management definitions

An FOI enquiry seeking a BBC definition of "senior manager" has elicited an interesting response.

Auntie has missed two self-ordained targets in trying to reduce the boss class, after former Chairman Lord Patten opined that there were "more senior leaders at the BBC than in the Chinese communist party".

The targets - a 20% reduction in the numbers of senior managers earning over £150,000; and a senior manager population that is 1% of the total workforce - are still there, but the FOI response points to another line in the Annual Report: "We are reviewing options for the definition of our senior leader population in order to give real clarity about the core community who are accountable for leading and running the BBC."

One of the problems Auntie doesn't like to mention is the number of presenters who've been put back onto staff contracts, after previous BBC instructions to set themselves up as companies fell foul of Margaret Hodge and the Public Accounts Committee. Their generous salaries, often way beyond the roof of their allotted grades, are distorting figures even more. They dot around grades 10 and 11, but, of course, if the BBC separated them out from "the core community", it wouldn't be saving money, and might expose some rather inflated rates of pay.

Keep it Lowe

NBC has retained the rights to live Premier League coverage in the United States for the next six years.

This is good news for presenter Rebecca Lowe, daughter of Chris Lowe, former BBC reporter and presenter, now a big cheese at Middlesex County Cricket Club and fan of Crystal Palace, currently riding high in second place in the Premiership.  

Naturally

I have readers who will be delighted that Countryfile from Llandudno was the most watched tv programme of Sunday night, with close to 6m viewers. And it was largely a compilation of old stuff. (Anyone catch John Craven referring to the Great Orme as a "naturist paradise" ?)

Partners In Crime, BBC1's version of Agatha Christie's attempt at Cold War hokum, finished its first "story" with 4.5m viewers - meaning some 2 million who watched the opener didn't follow through.

Complete, beautiful and flexible

The BBC is looking for a personnel specialist with experience of complex reporting. This does not mean mapping the psyches of difficult staff. (Imagine the spreadsheet - Adonis, Cinderella, Diana, Napoleon, Superman and more - top job !)

No. You will be required to "manage the generation of complex, business sensitive reports based on human resource data, often having to manage inputs from multiple systems and sources, and using specialist reporting tools. The HR Specialist (Complex Reporting) will be accountable for the production of the HR Exec reporting pack, HR dashboards, etc., in collaboration with the technical team. The role will be an advocate for MI/Reporting and therefore will work collaboratively with the wider business to understand their needs and ensure they understand the data and insight that can be delivered. The role will be expected to constantly innovate and simplify reporting procedures and techniques."

"MI", I think, stands for Management Information. "To constantly innovate" is a split infinitive. Ideally, candidates should be familiar with SuccessFactors, the not-at-all-scary HR offshoot of financial reporting system SAP.

"SuccessFactors provides the leading cloud-based SuccessFactors HCM Suite, which comprises solutions that are complete, beautiful, and flexible, and which can help you optimize your workforce today and prepare it for tomorrow." Whether that means inside or outside the Osborned-BBC...

Amphiprion ocellaris

Oh dear. Self-effacing Jeremy Vine has volunteered for Strictly. He's been hiding under the code-name Nemo - "a very energetic young clown-fish".

Here's a scratchy Children in Need video from 2001, when Jezzer was part of a BBC News team channelling Christopher Walken's moves to Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice. Jennie Bond would beat him in any dance-off, without a body double.

Horses for...

This year's tree-hugging, quadrangle-lurking, punt-sinking Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention is chaired by the BBC Director General Lord Hall - and he's deployed some of his old production skills in casting the event.

So a panel on the digital single market will be hosted by BBC Europe Editor Katya Adler; Tim Davie, of BBC Worldwide, will introduce Josh Sapan of AMC Networks, now operating BBC America; BBC Business Editor Kamal Ahmed introduces Viacom's Phillipe Dauman; and Emily Maitlis introduces Nick Clegg.

Lord Hall himself will make the introductions for John Whittingdale. James Purnell, channelling Graham Norton, chairs a panel on television in 2020, complete with amusing, specially-commissioned clips from Gogglebox.

All your, including a student-sized single bed, for just £2,220 a delegate.

Full circle

Students of tv life-cycles will note that this SIS, which took over the BBC's Outside Broadcast operations in 2008, this week sold its 50% interest in Dock 10, which operates tv studios and post-production at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays.

The BBC ended its OB relationship with SIS in 2013, and shortly afterwards SIS shut down that side of its business. The deal to run the MediaCityUK studios was struck in 2010. Now, Peel Media becomes the sole owner.

SIS in the UK now concentrates on satellite uplinks, and betting shop feeds and services - which is where it started in 1987.

More-ish

The third series of Ripper Street, which arrived at BBC1 this month after a run round the online market with co-sponsor Amazon Prime Instant Video, is winning the 9pm slot for the network - but then, it is up against BBQ Champ on ITV.

The BBC decided first to drop the series, after its ratings for Series 2 fell below 5m, then showed renewed interest once Amazon came in with funding. The first two episodes of the current series have returned figures of 3.7m and 3.4m. This is against a slot average for the past twelve months of 3.9m. Amazon have announced that there will be a Series 4 and a Series 5 - have the BBC already committed ?

Chain of command

Katherine Rushton, in the Mail, believes Lord Hall, James Harding and James Purnell are all on holiday, and makes enquiries.

I asked BBC who is in charge whilst Tony Hall is on holiday. An hour later, I got this response: 'The BBC is running as normal'

— Katherine Rushton (@kerushton) August 7, 2015

And yet, however far away he may be, Lord Hall was able to offer this tribute to the nation's press on Thursday. ‘George Cole was a wonderful actor, and he has a very special place in the public’s affection. He will be greatly missed.’

We know Alan Yentob's around, missing out so far this August on Tuscany. Danny Cohen is back from Twitter purdah, and delivering 140 character insights on Test Cricket, Liverpool FC and BBC3 comedies. But it's possible they're not in charge.  Whither Helen Boaden and Tim Davie ?

Grand

The debate between would-be Republican candidates for the US Presidency proved a big winner for FOX News. A total of 24 million viewers are said to have tuned in during the two hour long main show.

This makes it the most watched cable channel programme ever outside sport. In 2012, FOX staged the first Republican tv husting, with just 3.2m watching.

Twitt-chy

Twitter's often first with job news. The BBC's James Landale, Deputy Political Editor, hasn't tweeted since July 22nd, when Laura Kuenssberg beat him to fill Nick Robinson's chair.

Social media observers have noted that James's recent Twitter 'follows' include the ITV Press Centre and ITN Editor Geoff Hill. There is a vacancy at ITN for a Political Editor, following the announcement that Tom Bradby is moving to present News at Ten.

Women in numbers

The Magic of Julia Bradbury returned to ITV last night, with the third episode of The Wonder of Britain airing in the 9pm slot. The series was pulled in January after just two episodes, which produced audiences around 1.5m in overnight ratings.

Last night, the total was 1.8m - and a bigger share (9.6%) of a smaller available audience. Still, not really another breakthrough for ITV Factual. Especially when Great British Bake-Off returned with an average of 9.3m, despite nay-sayers claiming an early August launch would be a disaster.

In the UK league table of vibrant women presenters, Katie Hopkins' new show on the TLC Channel launched to 68,800 viewers. Guests were Liz Jones, Gemma Collins and comedian Paul Foot.

All in the family

The Verge points out a little intra-Murdoch set-to. Last night Sky News was happily streaming the Fox News Republican Presidential candidate debate on its YouTube channel - until YouTube stopped it, at Fox News' request.

• In other dynasty news, the Verge reporter on the case was Sam Byford, running the site's overnight desk from Tokyo. 

Upset

BBC Creative Director Alan Yentob submitted himself to 12 minutes in the ring with Matt Frei on Channel 4 News tonight, and got quite upset. But he insisted there was no financial mismanagement at the charity which he chaired until its closure, Kids Company. This seems a little at odds with published internal memos, which show the charity had been unable to pay wages for July - though Matt Frei didn't manage to pick up that point.

And Mr Yentob claimed that Newsnight had been preparing its story this week on Kids Company without contacting the charity - and he simply rang up the production team to ask why. Presenter Emily Maitlis disputes this point.

Newsnight was in contact with kids company right the way through, actually. https://t.co/3Kt97702tR

— emily m (@maitlis) August 6, 2015

Advice

George Osborne has again turned to Scottish Widows chair and BBC Trustee Nick Prettejohn for help, this time to run an advisory committee looking at online financial advice.

Nick managed eight out of 11 meetings of the full Trust last year, 11 out of 14 Editorial Standards meetings, and two out of 3 Management meetings. He did lead all 11 sessions of the Value For Money Committee, and I'm sure will make the case for an increased licence fee in Charter Renewal...

There he is

I guessed that Alan Yentob might be in Tuscany, but BBC News tracked him down in the UK
yesterday, for a "No Comment" on the charity he chaired, Kids Company. Anyone recognise the piazza ?

Ball games

Another uncomfortable set of listening figures for Radio 5 Live, down 15% year on year, to a weekly reach of 5.3m - which, from memory, is roundabout where it started in 1994. 5Live Sports Extra got a boost from the old war horse of Test Match Special, covering the West Indies and New Zealand Tests, and was up 77%, but football on the radio in general suffered - Talksport was down 10% year on year as well. I suspect this is down to the growing availability of tv coverage, at home and in the pub.

LBC seems to have had a good General Election, with ever-growing Nick Ferrari at breakfast ever-growing, bringing record figures to the station around the UK - maybe ex-5Liver Shelagh Fogarty also helped. The Today programme had no noticeable election surge.

In other odds and ends, Radio Cymru is down 22% year on year; Radio Manchester up 22%; the Asian Network is up by 10%. Nostalgia is doing well for Absolute 80s, up 29% and Absolute 70s, up a stonking 68%. There were surges for Heart Northwales and Smooth North West and Wales, presumably thanks to the arrival of DAB transmitters.

The World Service in the UK was up 13% year on year. In a statistic from another source, the average age of listeners around the globe is said to be 32. Maybe they should produce Radio 1 as well.

Ideate me now on the cross verticals, tentpoles and pitches

I'm grateful to a correspondent at the leading edge of digital for this job ad, which needs no explanation. Ideate is apparently back in use, having first emerged in the 17th Century.

BuzzFeed is seeking a managing editor to join the Creative team based in New York. BuzzFeed Creative specializes in native advertising and continuously innovates how brands tell their story in the social space. We have also recently launched a suite of longform products, including original reporting. 

We’re looking for a seasoned editor with cross-vertical experience to pitch ideas, manage a freelance network, and do original reporting in addition to fact-checking and editing. This position will focus largely on ideating article pitches for RFPs with a wide range of editorial focus. He or she will also be tasked with proactive pitching based on holidays and tentpoles with a strong awareness of what is trending in multiple editorial verticals such as tech, science, DIY, and culture (food, music, entertainment). 

As we are constantly innovating and building upon our offerings, the managing editor will be accountable for consistently growing and developing compelling content while maintaining our high journalistic standards. The ideal candidate is passionate about journalism, loves to experiment with article formats, and pushes the envelope with fresh ideas. He or she should be very comfortable with collaboration and experienced in giving editorial feedback and guidance. A love for reading, writing, and storytelling is a must!

Coming early

It looks like there was insufficient warning of a handover to presenter Carole Walker, picking up from Business Live yesterday morning on the BBC News Channel. Maybe a missing trail or two ?

Trustees

There may be some continuing awkwardness at Broadcasting House if Kids Company goes under.

According to the Mail, it's not just the Government that's concerned about providing more money, but other high-profile donors. "The Mail has learned these include Comic Relief, which has loaned and donated hundreds of thousands of pounds in the past 15 years."

Current chairman of Kids Company is BBC Creative Director and Executive attendee Alan Yentob, likely to be in Tuscany, given the time of year.

Current chairman of Comic Relief is BBC Worldwide CEO and Executive Board member, Tim Davie. With him as trustees are BBC Director of Television and Executive Board member Danny Cohen, and Director of BBC Studios and Management Team member, Peter Salmon.

Try to remember

Slightly off topic, I know, but it seems if you wanted to be a student and had to borrow money from the Government to survive, you would have to pay it back in full. If you were an incompetent bank, rescued by the intervention of the Government, you'd be sold back to the market at a loss to the taxpayer, because Osborne wants to balance the books in time for his Prime Ministerial bid......

Not cheap....

Insomniacs have been waking to the yellow graphics of BBC World's Newsday on BBC1 this week. Presentation is split between Rico Hizon in a new Singapore studio, complete with triple big screen and catwalk, and Babita Sharma in London.

Cash-starved hacks in the Broadcasting House newsroom have noticed the scale of the investment, as the BBC's UK-facing News Channel remains on life-support. Little sign of hot-desking in Rico's Periscope Tour of the Singapore branch of The World's Newsroom - though perhaps someone did ship out a range of carpet tiles from the London stockroom.

Safe ?

There was some mild amusement in the press that John Whittingdale, our 55-year-old Culture Secretary, enjoyed the music provided by Pete Tong, a 55-year-old disc jockey, at the BBC's Ibiza Prom last week.

John's son enjoyed it too. Radio 1 over the line ?

Big up @PeteTong & @BBCR1. Dance music done properly @BBCproms 🎼🔊✨ pic.twitter.com/DWMQQ36rdv

— Henry Whittingdale (@hwhittingdale) July 29, 2015

Head to head

The Mail On Sunday's Political Editor, Simon Walters, mentions, en passant, in today's piece about the political ambitions of George Osborne, that the Chancellor DID meet Rupert Murdoch after the General Election.

"Labour is demanding to know if he met media mogul Rupert Murdoch shortly before his Budget attack on BBC funding. This newspaper understands the two men did meet when Murdoch visited the UK after the Election."

Lunch away from base

New (Age ?) Daddy James Purnell, the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital, has been enjoying the rather more analogue pleasures of the Shuffle Festival at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

Perfect day for @ShuffleFestival - off for lunch in a treehouse

— James Purnell (@jimpurnell) August 1, 2015

The Symbiosis Restaurant offered a three course meal for £15 a head, with some of the ingredients foraged from the park by chef India Hamilton. Here's the blurb that lured Jimmy...

Symbiosis: the relationship between two different organisms living in close physical association, whether mutually beneficial or not. 

Walk deep in the woods of Shuffle Festival and climb the branches to dine at the Symbiosis Treehouse Restaurant.....

In keeping with the theme, we suggest you invite someone who has had some influence on your life, and experience the calming surrounds of treetops, glittering lights, bubbling microalgae and the soft glow of bioluminescence.

So presumably not George Osborne.

Y not ?

Hat tip to reader Mister Neutron.

Working lunches

The BBC has provided the cost of catering for some of its Executive Board meetings, in response to a Freedom of Information enquiry, and following a complaint to the Information Commissioner by the enquirer. He was really after internal hospitality costs in News, and, as usual, Auntie says information about feeding journalists is held for the purposes of journalism.

Scran for the Executive meetings cost as follows...

September 2014 £490.80
October 2014 £416.20
December 2014 £277.30
January 2015 £65.95
February 2015 £15.90
March 2015 £204.00

The BBC urges us to include this quote. “These meetings can be lengthy and substantive, with attendees having to work through lunch so limited food or refreshments are provided. The average cost for these six meetings was £11 per person.”

Or around twice that per head, for the best-catered meeting.

There's no suggestion that the Executive Directors and Non-Executive Directors might bring their own sandwiches. That's, presumably, for lower ranks.

• Sunday update: A number of working lower rankers have pointed out to me that current limit on BBC expenses for lunch when working more than 5 miles from base, or unable to return to base, is £6.

Don't mentino it

Saucy Sebastian Shakespeare could do with a sub.

Frontiersmen

Wikipedia says:

Jason Seiken is a pioneering media executive best known for launching The Washington Post on the web and for transforming PBS from a respected but cautious television network into an innovative digital leader. 

A dual citizen of the United States and United Kingdom, he also was the first American to run the newsroom of a major British newspaper, though his tenure as editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph was controversial.

This entry has largely been constructed by someone with the user name AdamKaz, since mid-July. AdamKaz's biggest previous contribution to the online encyclopedia was about Gerry Campbell, "an American investor, entrepreneur, executive, and author". He was also described by AdamKaz as "pioneering" until a more senior Wiki person took it out.