Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Question time

A new date for your diaries: October 15, 9.40am

The House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs will hear evidence from Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and former Chief Executive of Kids Company and Alan Yentob, Chairman of Trustees at the charity's beginning and end.

Dial up

Regular readers will know how my day lights up when I come across a great HR case study. Today, "Landing Transformational Change", from the CIPD and University of Bath. The landing team at BBC Worldwide were incoming CEO, Tim Davie, and his director of People, Kirstin Furber, an "expert facilitator" who's established HR as "horizontal, running throughout".

Some extracts: "In BBC Worldwide the translation of the future vision into individual change started at the top and was then taken to senior managers before being opened to everyone. Time was made for consultation with senior leaders at each stage to allow them to design and own the change.

"There was a mass conversation for 1,800 staff, which was started between the executive and senior leaders, and then cascaded down to team leaders and teams, in the form of a workshop that asked everyone what they loved about BBC Worldwide and what could be improved. The purpose of the conversation was to get people more focused on the culture and excited about working at BBC Worldwide – to ‘dial up’ the culture, but at the same time to ask what needed to change. These events also allowed the capture of fantastic stories from individuals about their most inspirational moments at BBC Worldwide, which could then be shared. These workshops built on the fact that many individuals work in Worldwide because they feel very passionate about the BBC."

You can hear more from Kirstin at the HR Change & Transformation Conference, in Canary Wharf next month, when she will open up about "Creating an Inspiring Growth Culture", to delegates who have paid at least £1,095 each. (It's a bit cheaper to read "The Secrets of Success at Work: 10 Steps to Accelerating Your Career", which Kirstin reviewed on Amazon in 2010.)

  • In other conference news, you'll be disappointed to learn that Damien Shieber, BBC HR Partner, Talent and Organisational Development is no longer speaking at the Talent Management and Development Summit, being held at the Hilton in Canary Wharf in October, on the topic "Building a high performance culture with talent".

Data recovery

"BBC bosses are Waitrose people through and through" said Janet Street-Porter, yesterday. It's a theme we've mentioned before.

So where are we with myBBC ? Still recruiting. 26 current job ads have myBBC in their title; I've found a similar number advertised and presumably filled in the last twelve months. There are others with titles involving Direct Marketing and Customer Relationship Management.

What's it all about ?  Well, it's not about making new programmes, but delivering "a richer experience".  And, notes the excellent Martin Belam, it's been announced by the BBC three times since 2000.

The current version is led from the front by Phil Fearnley, Director of Homepage & myBBC. Behind is a range of consultancy firms, evidenced by this from a current ad for a Technical Project Manager: "Over the next 6 months, the workstream consists of 3 mainly external agile development teams split on and offshore, after which a new wholly BBC agile team will need to be recruited and built up. This TPM role will be working closely with the external team, then recruiting a new BBC internal team and then will be the scrum master for this team."

The trouble is that this is ALL marketing, marketed inside the BBC by consultants who might or might not have interests in future contracts. "Personalisation" narrows choice to those things the computer says you're interested in. We've all experienced Amazon, Google, Facebook and others constantly pushing you to inferior versions of things you've already bought. And supermarkets giving you vouchers to buy bigger packs of the cat food you've just put in the trolley.

As Mr Fearnley personalises your segment of BBC content, numbers of users of the BBC Homepage are going down. Many are unhappy with the quality of the "personalisation" of the latest version of News app, where you're offered a selection of a dozen or so bland "themes".

In a broadcasting world where BBC listeners and viewers already feel Auntie is relentlessly pushing a range of "tentpole" shows in every programme break, making them feel like the real ads they resent on ITV, the consultants need to be told enough is enough. Gentle discovery and serendipity, through excellent in house developments like BBC Genome, is the way forward.

One last rant: If sign up for a myBBC id, say, for a Strictly vote, will I be allowed to see the data that Auntie holds on me ?


  • 1430 Update: Through research, not personalisation, I found this tweet below, from the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital. The article it links to is pretty clear that current forms of personalisation are pretty rubbish. Should, then, the BBC be building something from scratch ? At what cost ? DMI-scale ?



Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Pesto ingredients

I'm a little puzzled that Robert Peston might be entertaining a move to ITV. The network offers many fewer outlets than the sprawling BBC, working within lower budgets and to lower audiences.

Part of Pesto's fun at the BBC, once he realised it didn't matter he was odd, and once producers realised that his oddness was useful and endorsed by the suits, was the range of things he could do - pioneering instant blogs, world travel, Newsnight, getting mercilessly teased by Eddie Mair, Radio 4 interview shows, 3 minute explainers on line, tv think pieces when he wasn't forced to write anything down, and a couple of books on the side.

To have that circumscribed into a nightly political contribution to ITV's 10pm audience of sometimes less than 2m is odd.

Unless..
The package is extremely creative.
or The craving for a political role is insatiable
or He's bored with the way things are at BBC News

Or a bit of all three.

Monday, September 28, 2015

Continuous journey

The BBC is looking for a Senior Advisor, Internal Communications and Engagement. This is to support the Head of Internal Communications and Engagement, who in turn reports to the Director of Internal Communications and Engagement. Apparent the Senior Advisor (henceforward SAICE) will actually create and deliver creative engagement campaigns.

Until June this year, Sao Bui Van was Acting DICE, but he's now left for the British Council. I can find no announcement of a successor. Heather Wagoner arrived as HICE in July; she's an American with a BA in journalism from Ohio State, who's previously worked for Rolls Royce and Transport for London. She's now based in Lichfield, which is handy for the new HR Central in the wide-open spaces of BBC Birmingham. She has a blog, "Communicate for Success"; I particularly enjoyed the post "Three Killer Questions to Help Fight Organisational Inertia".

You can hear from Heather at the PR Week Strategic Internal Comms conference in November, for an earlybird rate of £549. Here's her billing..

16:30 Communicating through the journey of change

This talk will look at how you can connect with your audience and keep your colleagues engaged when your organisation is undergoing constant changes that create uncertainty in the workplace. More than a presentation, concentrating on a specific time of change (a restructure for example), this final speech will leave you empowered to manage your continuous journey of change.

I'm free

We've known since the summer that the Sun was beginning to knock holes in its paywall. The rationale was to allow social media sharing of news and sports stories that were largely widely available.

But since the arrival of new editor Tony Gallagher, "exclusive" has been the tag that he demands. And you'd think that bits of that sort of journalism might be used to attract readers to lash out £7.99 a month for access. But lo, this morning, at 8am, all the stories below were free to read, including three alleged "exclusives", of poor to slighty poorer strength. You may wish to accept my assurances that the full version of "Poldark sets invaded by sea of randy doggers" bears little scrutiny, and even less relationship with the headline.


















Meanwhile the Scotsman, under the long-distance tutelage of thought-leader Ashley Highfield, has relaunched its website this morning, with a colour palette that can only be a fex hex codes away from that claimed by the Guardian. There's something of the Guardian, too, in the Scotsman's top stories this morning..."Gannets could face higher risk from wind farms", "Michael Fassbender in Edinburgh" and "Stale bread restaurant opened by Bake-Off winner".


Sunday, September 27, 2015

Future Uncertain

The Bloomsbury Hotel in London may be the place to be tomorrow evening, with BBC Director of Let's-Get-a Better-White-Paper, James Purnell in the interview chair.

The weekend papers have floated more possible future depredations - a five year Charter, instead of ten, allowing the Conservatives, potentially with Osborne in Number 10, to come back for more cash later, selling off BBC Worldwide and the fledgling BBC Studios.

John Whittingdale's words now have to be studied very carefully - he didn't quite say flogging C4 was off the agenda, but many of us assumed that's what he meant. So let's hope Mr Purnell's Media Society interlocutor probes on Mr Purnell's current discussions, in Westminster (and Scotland). And perhaps he could also help us understand how the licence-fee loophole on catch-up might be closed.

The interviewer is Clive Jones, former CEO of Carlton TV (when David Cameron was his Head of Communications, and his wife was Fern Britton).


Boom

Whilst we're waiting for the rugby and dancing ratings, just to note that on Friday, Piers Morgan's Life Stories (with John Lydon/Johnny Rotten) attracted just 1.45m viewers (6.9%) in the overnight figures (excluding +1). Doesn't seem to be mentioned in his Twitter timeline.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Old Weiwei

Oddly, I can't find any serious pre-publicity for the Autumn 2015 Season of Imagine, which launches just before midnight this Sunday on BBC1. The first programme is a repeat from 2010, on Ai Weiwei. But it would be a surprise if presenter Alan Yentob hasn't filmed a new "top" to the show, as he's been dashing in and out of the Royal Academy (and sometimes across the road to the Wolseley) as the artist was setting up his London exhibition.

























There are five more to come in the series. Meanwhile, Al's daughter Bella has been on a big fashion catwalk for the first time. According to her agency, the "aspiring writer and actress" is "Burberrys new favourite having just walked for their Spring/Summer 2016 show."


Tax or not

Director Peter Kosminsky, who brought us Wolf Hall By Candelight, says he had “a row” with the Culture Secretary this week. He went to see John Whittingdale, and argued over whether or not the licence fee was a tax, on which Mr Whittingdale remained obdurate.

Tax or not, the Office of Budget Responsibility deems the licence fee to be part of the public spending it's charged with monitoring. This was formally set up by George Osborne in 2010, and since then, he's been keen to cut the licence fee as well as lumping costs previously paid by Government departments into the BBC's lap. It's also why the BBC keeps having to do lease deals for new buildings - its borrowing counts as public sector borrowing, and is capped at £200m.

Friday, September 25, 2015

It's a puppet

BBC Children's supremo, Alice Webb, has been outlining her ambitions for Charter renewal, including the new digital offering iPlay. One suspects, like many other departments, there was more on the list before George Osborne's £750m raid on the licence fee.

Meanwhile former head of digital at BBC Children's, Marc Goodchild, who dropped out of Auntie's care in the move to Salford, is part of the launch team of a new app aimed at grandparents and grandchildren, called Gingersnap. It's brought to you by a list of "partners" that would make Alice jealous...

Feet

I'm not sure the bookies haven't been behind the scenes at Elstree. As we head to tonight's first full Strictly 2015 show, Jeremy Vine is a short favourite for first elimination, at 7/2. Carol Kirkwood is not far behind, on 10/3.

Both are dancing the cha-cha-cha, which started in 1950s Cuba. Carol will gyrate as Tommy Blaize and the Dave Arch Band cover Leo Sayer's Thunder in My Heart, written by little Leo with Tom Snow ("Take me baby I'm all yours, Do just what you wanna do with my love").

Jeremy will triple step to Earth Wind & Fire's September, written by Maurice White, Al McKay, and Allee Willis.

The lowest Strictly score for the dance was 8, awarded to Quentin Wilson. John Sergeant managed twelve, under the deft tutelage of Kristina Rihanoff.


Wine whinge

Deepjoy at the Guardian: a branch of Waitrose has just opened in one of the old goods sheds opposite their offices in King's Cross - and it has a wine bar. The Waitrose Food Hall in John Lewis, Oxford Street has a tiny wine bar, sometimes occupied by BBC staff, but there's only room for a dozen or so to sit. This looks like it might have similar problems...


Options

The snap of a Government-memo-meant-to-be-a-secret, showing options for privatising C4 are under consideration, is entertaining.

















According to the Guardian, C4 chairman Lord Burns is working on a "not-for-profit" option, but the memo asks that C4 opens its books to the Shareholder Executive to look at other possibilities.

And, lo, at the Shareholder Executive, we have non-executive director Caroline Thomson, BBC DG manque, who spent 11 years at C4, first in charge of science and business programmes and latterly as Head of Corporate Affairs.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Raising agents

"Winning" clearly matters to ITV, so they've posted figures to three decimal places for last night's battle between cobbles and cakes.

The live Coronation Street got 8.369 million viewers in the overnights, and Great British Bake-Off scored 8.366. But then the ITV figures includes 276,000 +1 viewers, a service denied to the BBC by the BBC Trust.

Inter Lopa

Not quite sure what to make of this tweet, from Lopa Patel, the "digital entrepreneur" who is one of Culture Secretary John Whittingdale's advisory panel on Charter renewal.


She says what she thinks...

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Differential gear

62% of the BBC's senior managers got a 2.5% rise this August, in line with the workers, after a number of years in which their pay was frozen.

The Freedom of Information response doesn't divulge what 100% means in numbers. Those who missed out on the August rise - Executive Board and team members; those on full-time-equivalent salaries of £150,000 or more; those who received a pay increase after 1 February 2015; managers who joined 1 April 2015; and those working out notice.

MAA

Whilst we seem to be focussed on the formative years of David Cameron, let's see what we can find about his unauthorised biographer, Lord Ashcroft.

Born out of wedlock in digs in Chichester in 1946, his mother and Army father married just before the family went out to Nyasaland in 1947, for a job with the Overseas Colonial Service. In 1953, the next posting was British Honduras - the family travelled on a Fyffes banana boat out of Liverpool, and then flew from Jamaica via the Cayman Islands, in a journey lasting a month.

East Nigeria beckoned in 1956, but 10-year-old Michael was sent as a boarder to King Edward VI Grammar School, where he was remorsely teased for his Caribbean inflections. In summer holidays, he made the long flight to his family, via Rome and Tripoli.

Father left the overseas life when Michael had completed eight O-levels, eventually buying a house in Maidenhead, and Michael transferred to the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. He'd got an offer to study mathematics and psychology at Reading, but only passed Maths A-Level.

In later life, Michael self-diagnosed the problem as ADD - "excess fidgeting, lack of concentration, clowning around, excessive talking, short attention span and engaging in high-risk activities. I recognised each of those characteristics in myself."  The next educational step was an HND in business studies at Mid-Essex Technical College in Chelmsford.

There, Michael confesses to new vices: "pretty girls, beer and a short-lived twenty-a-day smoking habit". Social life revolved around the Railyway Tavern. He learned to drive and acquired a mini. He "managed" (drove round) a local rock and roll band, Trident. He touted tickets for London cinema screenings of Muhammad Ali fights. He worked as a life-guard at Chelmsford's open air swimming pool: "The job had one notable perk: it was useful for admiring and, occasionally, dating the local talent."

In the holidays, he returned to Maidenhead to serve frothy coffees at El Toucan, in the High Street, owned at one stage by Diana Dors, sometimes billed as "The Coffee Bar Jezebel". He also played bridge for 6d per 100 points, against older ladies at the Maidenhead Conservative Club, usually ending up in profit.

You will see the Doctor now

Whilst the new season of Dr Who may have launched a little more quietly than the BBC might have hoped (up against live rugby) at 4.64m viewers in the overnights, it's already ticking along nicely in catch-up, thank you - up to a total 6 million yesterday.

It's also done nicely for BBC America, delivering 2 million total viewers and 1.1 million adults 18-49 on Saturday. If you focus on viewers aged 18 to 49, it beat the four big networks, and came third overall in the timeslot, behind college football on ESPN and the finale of Sábado Gigante on Univision. The 18-49 audience was nearly double the average of the last Dr Who season in the States.

BBC America put the whole of the first episode up on YouTube for free, just a matter of hours after the broadcast, (though it's blocked in the UK).

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Catch up

The BBC Trust opined that BBC1 should not have a +1 service; the Executive said it should, and Director of Digital and Strategy James Purnell picked up some noises of support at the recent hearing of the Culture Select Committee. You have a week to tell the Trust what YOU think.

Many exciting uses

Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott will have thought through the risks of possible triangular identification of their pig whisperer.

They say the allegation was first made at a business dinner in June 2014, by a 'distinguished Oxford contemporary' in June 2014. This source, now an MP, repeated the claim a few weeks later, and then, after a matter of months, a biblical third time. The MP claimed there was photographic evidence, still held by someone named to Ashcroft and Oakeshott, and the MP knew the dimensions of the photo.

Oxford University, unsurprisingly, has produced a number of current Conservative MPs whose time in the city of dreaming spires overlapped with the Prime Minister. The include Michael Gove, Nick Boles, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ed Vaizey, Jeremy Hunt and Mark Field. Of course, Ashcroft and Oakeshott are unspecific about the party affiliation of their source.  More work to be done, and thence swiftly to a list of June 2014 business dinners....

  • Oxfordshire has many pig farmers, though the average population of the beasts in the county has fallen by over half since 1975. The county is home to the Oxford Sandy and Black breed, sometimes called the 'Plum Pudding' or 'Oxford Forest Pig'.  One of the UK's oldest breeds, it came close to extinction 20 years ago, but there are now herds all round the country. Pig's heads, traditionally used in the making of brawn, have featured in butcher displays in Oxford's covered market for years. The best price I can find online is with trendy London butchers Turner & George, at just £5 for a 4-5 kilo head. They note a pig's head has "many exciting uses". 

Monday, September 21, 2015

Porcine

Looking forward to Sebastian Shakespeare in the Mail tomorrow. Whilst at the Evening Standard, the diarist admitted to attending a drinks party hosted by Count Gottfried von Bismarck, a member of the Piers Gaveston Society, when he was a student at Oxford University. No date given, but the Count was at Christ Church from 1983 to 1986.

"Count von Bismarck was part of the racy set and you needed a trust fund just to keep up with their hedonistic lifestyle. I had barely met Gottfried when one day, out of the blue, I received in my pigeonhole a giltedged, embossed invitation to a drinks party he was hosting at Christ Church.

"This was clearly in a different league from your normal student party. To my amazement, the creme de la creme of Oxford were in attendance including Princess Diana's brother Viscount Spencer, Old Etonian Darius Guppy, Sebastian Guinness and his cousin Olivia Channon.

"However it wasn't the guest list that attracted my attention so much as the severed pigs' heads on either end of the banqueting table, emulating a Bavarian hunting party. No expense was spared when it came to the lavish spread. There were even some crumbs left over for the tabloids. "Dracula's Feast for the Count" was the headline in the following weekend's News of the World. "The two toffs sat toasting themselves as the blood dripped onto the food," noted the lascivious reporter.

"The evening ended in predictable debauchery. I made my excuses and stayed. And stayed. It was my first taste of high society and low morals."

"It was perhaps fitting that he should study at Christ Church. Historically, the college was renowned for its binge-drinking, strangers puking through your window and the baying of tipsy toffs of the infamous Bullingdon club in full cry........ The young count became a member of the louche Piers Gaveston Society, whose members often wore rubber and carried whips, and he was also known to attend Bullingdon Club dinners. After his pigs' heads party I met him in various incarnations on the party circuit. Whether dressed up in lederhosen or fishnet stockings, he was always charm personified and scintillating company."

Sebastian dated Rachel Johnson at Oxford - she was at New College. When Olivia Channon was found dead from a heroin overdose in the Count's Christ Church rooms in 1986, Rachel was commissioned by Lord Weidenfield to pull together a book called The Oxford Myth. Our Seb wrote a chapter on eccentrics; her brother Boris wrote one on student politics and the Oxford Union, and his first wife-to-be, Allegra Mostyn-Owen wrote a piece on drugs.

Rachel's own essay in the book was on sex, and she wrote about Chapsoc, the Cheese and Wine Appreciation Society...."easily the raunchiest society in Oxford, far surpassing the tame transvestism of the Piers Gaveston way...the Bacchanalian quality of its meetings derives not so much from the amount of wine drunk as from the sexual excitement generated by the proximity of so many secretaries. Rendered incapable of small talk, difficult at the best of times in noisy rooms, the boys throw French sticks and packets of supermarket cheese at the girls they fancy".

End of the Piers ?

The Piers Gaveston Society, named after Edward II's favourite (and possibly lover), was founded in 1977. One founder member was Valentine Guinness, son of brewery heir Lord Moyne, then in his first year at Christ Church.

Valentine went to West Downs prep school in Winchester, and then to Eton. At the age of 14 he met Salvador Dali on a holiday at the family-owned 18th century monastery above Cadaques - but nothing untoward happened. Valentine's sister was PA to Andy Warhol, and in 1980, Valentine and US-postgrad Jeffrey Leeds set up another club, The George, which invited the artist to Oxford.

Valentine was in a band called "Panic", and on leaving Oxford, he released a self-penned single "Hey Hey C.T.J" on the Rak label.

Valentine is now lead singer with The New Forbidden, alongside lead guitarist and pasta sauce king Loyd Grossman, once again appearing at the Avalon Cafe in Glastonbury this year.

The biggest public event held by the Piers Gaveston Society seems to have been their 1983 ball, held at that den of iniquity, the Park Lane Hotel on Mayfair, and captured on camera by photographer Dafydd Jones. The dress code was "Garden of Earthly Delights", and paying guests included Nigella Lawson, Hugh Grant, Annabel Heseltine, and, yes, Geordie Greig, currently editor of The Mail On Sunday.

I can find no record of Gaveston events from 1985 to 1988, when David Cameron was at Brasenose.

Sasha Slater, now deputy editor of Harper's Bazaar, recalls a Piers Gaveston event from her Oxford days (1990 to 1994). "While I was an undergraduate, Nat Rothschild hosted it at one of his many properties, a set of farm outbuildings that were illuminated for the night by candles stuck in pigs' heads. I drove, which meant at the end of the evening I had to rescue about 11 male friends, one of whom, a strapping 6ft 3in man, dressed in a nightie, was sitting in a muddy cowbyre weeping and begging 'Please take me home'. "

Sasha emerged with a double first in modern languages.


Sus

I'm grateful to the Wayback Machine for capturing a BBC News page from earlier today.

As you can see, the main story is headlined "Lord Ashcroft 'not settling scores' with David Cameron book". The top of the suggested features you might like to follow-up ? A story about Chinese pig consumption....


Away with the birds

The Sun offers a Monday-morning Beeb bash, freed from the Murdoch paywall under new editor Tony Gallagher, for its investment in The Space - "an £8million licence fee-funded website promoting obscure digital art projects." The story is credited as "an exclusive" by Political Editor Tom Newton-Dunn. (3.30pm update: now jointly credited to BBC-irritator-in-chief Miles Goslett).

It notes that BBC Creative Director, Alan Yentob was part of the launch, in November 2011, stepping down in March this year. Alongside him was Auntie's main financial partner in the scheme, Alan Davey, representing the Arts Council England. Mr Davey now leads BBC Radio 3, and oversees the Proms.

This year, The Space is supposed to move into the space in the BBC's Mailbox offices in Birmingham. It's now an independent Community Interest Company, with a board of five. It's chaired by Fiona Allen, incoming boss of the Birmingham Hippodrome. The BBC is represented by Jonathan Sidney Claypole-Smith, better known as Director of Arts, Jonty, and Ms Lisa Opie, cafe owner and BBC Controller of Business, Knowledge and Daytime.

The current interim director of The Space is serial arts non-executive Anthony Lilley.

It's hard to check web stats, but SimilarWeb estimates The Space had 20,000 desktop visits last month, 42% from the UK, with most referred by bbc.co.uk, The Guardian and artsjobs. My blog had around 8k. The Arts Council, by SimilarWeb, is estimated at 70k, the National Gallery at 220k and the Tate at 630k, over the same period.


Sunday, September 20, 2015

The price is right ?

The BBC decided Ripper Street had run its course when series 2 finished with an average audience of around 4.8m.

Interest was re-kindled when Amazon stepped in to fund/co-fund series 3.  On Friday night series 3 ended with 2.19m viewers on BBC1 - 9.5% of the available audience.  This puts the average overnight audience for the series under 3m, and perhaps around 4m with catch-up.

Soon ?

According to the Sunday Express, the BBC has paid £15,000 to a man who says he was molested as a child by an "accomplice" of Jimmy Savile, after being invited by the DJ to an edition of Jim'll Fix It.

If the BBC is beginning to "settle" cases, perhaps this means that publication of the Dame Janet Smith Review isn't far away.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Nooo

There is apparently a new management edict that BBC World Service newsreaders should say "Hello" at the start of bulletins. I wonder if there's a concomitant list of lead stories when the application of "Hello" might not be appropriate. If Lord Hall is still a bit short on his list of 1,000 management jobs to cut, I think we may have a pointer here.

Add

I've been reminded of a Barry Rocard story which I hope adds to his dry sense of humour.

In the old days of Broadcasting House, a real road ran through the Entwistle piazza. Nestled where it turned was a small open forecourt car park, leading to a bigger underground car park. There was a stripey-pole barrier at the entrance, and at the lever end, a white-painted sentry box, glazed on three sides, equipped with a stool and a telephone.

From around 8am to 8pm this was occupied by a BBC commissionaire, pre-cursor of today's contracted-out security men, there to lift the barrier to those without car park tokens - deliveries and VIPs, whose impending arrival was announced via telephone. The bakelite phone was connected to a repeater bell under the eaves of the sentry box, should the commissionaire have left the box for a patrol, a fag or an errand of convenience.

Windows on the east side of the third floor radio newsroom overlooked this forecourt and its sentry box. This was the corner that housed "General News Services", writing national news summaries for use by local radio, and the News Organiser and the Foreign Duty Editor.

Barry Rocard had acquired the internal extension number of the sentry box phone. On slow news afternoons, when more senior editorial figures were perhaps taking longer lunches, Barry might drift to the window, and when the commissionaire left for a patrol, fag or errand of convenience, he would dial the number, and let it ring, waiting for the hapless sentry to turn. As the commissionaire put his hand on the sentry box door handle, Barry would put the phone down.

Then repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Come on over...

Better than Kafka. The BBC was asked, in a Freedom of Information enquiry, about the HR department's mapping of 3,000 managerial staff into a nine-box grid, as evidenced by an online case study, in a request filed on 12th August.

On 25th August, most of the online case study was taken down.

On 27th August, the BBC wrote back to the enquirer, saying they couldn't move forward on the case, because the online link was no longer valid.

On 31st August, the BBC were sent four more working links to the case study.

Yesterday the BBC responded to an enquiry about contacts with the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, original hosters of the online case study, and wrote this...

"When the BBC was alerted to the fact that an old BBC case study existed on the LFHE website, the BBC contacted them to ask that it was removed. This is standard practice on the basis that the case study was several years out of date and was not representative of practices within the organisation today; we felt it was therefore misleading."

Misleading or not, it is data, it was and is stored, and the BBC should not be tap-dancing around like this, pretending it knows nothing. Have a word, Valerie.

Mini Voice

Is there a problem with BBC commissioners' hearing ? Are they filtering out Lord Hall ?

CBBC has commissioned its own version of a Romanian tv format, now marketed by an US firm - and yes, it's a singing contest. 

Free-to-air channel Prima TV first showed "Mom Made Me A Star" in 2012, with the ten-part series coming from Bucharest indie Media Factory. It was picked up by LA and London formats specialists Small World, and will be renamed "Got What It Takes" for CBBC, produced by LA and London indie Rize USA, part of the LA and London DCD group. 

In each episode, the 11-to-14 year-old singers and their mums are separated to undertake a variety of challenges, with three spots to perform at the end of the show up for grabs. The final winner will get a booking at a Radio 1 Weekender.

Less stately

Staff at the BBC's listening post in Caversham have been told they could be on the move. Around 200 work for BBC Monitoring, based in the Grade II-listed mansion for over 70 years, capturing and translating news in more than 70 languages. Other BBC occupants are the Written Archives and BBC Radio Berkshire, home of such radio luminaries as Tony Blackburn, Paul Ross and Anne Diamond.

The BBC say the building is "under-occupied" (At its Second World War peak, it housed 1,000 staff; this week came news of more cuts, with four Senior Management posts being reduced to two). There is one other tenant Who We Don't Talk About - the UK operation of the National Intelligence Open Source Center, a division of the CIA, which leads to pretty tight security around the site.













If the BBC moves out, the grounds will also be missed. Under previous HR boss Lucy Adams, teepees were hired for a groovy People conference with a Glasto feel.

Numerology

£400m. It's one of the few figures worth chasing down in the 28-page proposal from the BBC Executive, to spin off some of BBC production as a new commercial subsidiary, BBC Studios.

"Based on its current business, BBC Studios will have total revenues of around £400m at launch."

Let's see if we can spend that. The new division/company will have "a fluctuating workforce of around 2,000 people". (Nice scary word, fluctuating.) The average BBC salary last year was £51,500. So a wage bill of £103m p.a.might be a good guess - unless, of course, the caps come off. BBC Worldwide's average salary was £67k, which would move Studios to £134m.

The BBC currently attempts to enforce in-house talent costs at 16% of total spend. Will that apply to S-S-Studios ? £64m ? What target profit margins will be set ? 15% ? ITV Studios returned 17% in its last figures.

The BBC Annual Report shows total support costs for content and distribution at £409m. Taking the Studios workforce at 10 per cent of the headcount, you might expect some of those content costs - property, HR and training, technology - to follow the transferring staff. Let's take a conservative £20m for that. I'd like to add £5m for "restructuring", presuming staff who don't fancy the Salmon leap can take redundancy/re-training/re-settlement. There may be staff Salmon doesn't fancy.

Then there's pensions. Last year the BBC used £188m of licence fees to reduce the pension deficit. 10% of that ought to follow staff into S-S-Studios. And then there's planning to cover the pension liabilities of staff TUPEd at a later stage into a full subsidiary. Studios will have to pay some royalties back to the BBC mothership for being gifted big brands like Dr Who and Strictly. I'm guessing that there'll be some spending on marketing, travelling, entertaining and pitching for new business, and visiting the various UK outposts of the new group. Of course, once a full subsidiary, those elements go off Freedom of Information radar.

A year's worth of EastEnders cost £30m to make in 2010/11. I suspect it's gone up. Who covers the cost of the new set ? Holby and Casualty were reported at a total of £41m in the same report.

We're promised "a flatter structure, with fewer hierarchies and more autonomy for talented individuals; a flexible operating model, supporting best-in-class commercial efficiency; and an entrepreneurial culture, ready to respond to new opportunities wherever they may arise". Lovely - wouldn't the rest of the BBC like that, Lord Hall ?


Thursday, September 17, 2015

S-S-Studios

The Director of BBC Studios-to-be was light on details and high on ethos, or something, at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge this afternoon.

Peter Salmon said the creation of BBC Studios was BBC Production moving out of the parents' house, to have more fun in a common culture. "Take our shirts off at parties", said Peter, 59.

No mention of where the new student accommodation would be, but a scary sidebar on the small Children's, who will be staying at home. "Children's is about to go through a lot of difficult changes as we move into an online world".

He also said "We have a unique creative footprint across the BBC". No, I've no idea, either.

Smart move

So, on the night Culture Secretary John "Whitto" Whittingdale gleefully announced the spending of public money on a market impact analysis of the clash between the BBC News at Ten and the ITV News At Ten, ITV moved their news to 11pm, and the BBC scored a sooper dooper 4.94m viewers (31%).  ITV's main evening news tonight is at 10.00pm, but moves to 10.15pm on Friday.

And while Whitto wittered on about BBC1 not being fresh and distinctive, 10m viewers tuned in for the sixth series of Great British Bake-Off.

  • This blog has occasionally hunted more regular audience figures for Newsnight. Last night they attracted 640,000 viewers (5.5%) according to the overnight figures. Still, that was a higher figure than BBC2 got from 8pm to 10.30pm. 

Barry Rocard

One of the most distinctive BBC voices unheard by listeners and viewers is no more. Barry Rocard, who worked as a "news organiser" in the newsroom at Broadcasting House for nearly 22 years, has died suddenly at the age of 76.

In the days before newsroom computers, with everyone now copytasting, the newsroom relied on an internal tannoy for alerts to breaking news. Barry, who came to the UK from radio in Australia in 1970, had a distinctive deep bass voice, and relished opportunities to hit the mike key on his desk, which relayed news snaps around Broadcasting House, Television Centre and Bush House.

Unlike later models, Barry was a phlegmatic and pragmatic cog in the frenetic wheel of breaking news - and still everything got done.  Occasionally, the switchboard, in the absence of Listener Lines and Call Centres, would route a complainant to newsroom phones. If Barry picked it up, he would listen apparently attentively, and at the end of the rant, ask for the caller's licence fee number, to enable the complaint to be dealt with formally. That was usually that.

Barry enunciated a little more discreetly when filing overnight to Australian stations from odd corners of the newsroom. After leaving the BBC in 1992 (just before the radio operation was frogmarched to Television Centre), he built on his love of pro- and am-dram, obtaining a LAMDA senior acting diploma, and becoming a pillar of community drama in Surbiton (where the cornerHouse is raising a glass to his memory tonight). He also toured with the English Concert Singers.  Links with radio news chums were kept through organising a regular Christmas get-together.

He assumed the character of Roman doctor Galen, for an Ancient Discoveries documentary in 2003 - but you only get glimpses of that rugged profile....





 

Show me the money

The usually-well-briefed Tara Conlan in the Guardian has interesting details about the BBC's proposals to create a super-indie, BBC Studios. It suggests the new organisation will include radio comedy, alongside tv drama, comedy and entertainment.

Tara continues "The creation of a commercial BBC Studios will also mean that talent and executive pay within the company will no longer be capped and executives will not be subject to the same level of scrutiny as they were in the public sector. Currently many details about how they operate can be obtained through freedom of information requests."  

This circle needs squaring - how on earth will BBC programmes from BBC Studios be cheaper in the future ? Are their offices to be sheds in Slough ? Will staff have no training ? Reduced employment rights ? No overheads for compliance ?  Something has to be cut, if executive pay in BBC Studios is to catch up, say, with Peter Salmon's £387,900 pa.


Wally

Ah, Whittingdale, J. The Culture Secretary sounding so wise, yet saying daft things at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge. He's asking for "independent research" on the "market impact" of the main BBC News going out at the same time as that on ITV. The only Charter response to this can be to create a clause that requires the BBC to decide its schedules after ITV has picked its favourite slot. But, he protests, he's not interfering in programmes. Make up your mind !



The Culture Secretary also revealed that the DCMS has had 28,000 responses to its Charter consultation, while the BBC Trust has received 40,000. Come on, we can do better than this. All you campaigners out there, from "Save BBC3", "Bring back Atlantis" to "Friends of Radio 3" and "Cohen's Luvvies" need to get online today.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Most excellent contract

"Nowadays I’m at least a generation older than everyone I work with. Still, since the BBC has promised me that I can keep on working for as long as I want, and because news reporting is the most fun and exciting thing imaginable, I’ll take them at their word."

BBC World Editor John Simpson, in The Guardian

Gradus ad Parnassum

Wykehamist John Whittingdale has lighted upon Wykehamist Sir David Cecil Clementi to conduct a review of the BBC's governance, to report back early in 2016.

Sir David (PPE Lincoln College, Oxford, Blue for athletics, and MBA Harvard) is a former Chairman of Virgin Money and Prudential (when BBC Trustee Nick Prettejohn was CEO) and previously a Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, as well as serving as Warden of Winchester College.

Since 2006, he's been a Trustee of the Royal Opera House, where he might well have encountered Lord Hall is his role as CEO.  He has homes in Wimbledon and on the Isle of Wight, where he races yachts.

Sir David's great great grandfather was the Italian-born English musician, Muzio Clementi, who thankfully has featured as Radio 3 Composer of the Week more than once.

Corporal punishment

Post 2 on the DCMS Select Committee yesterday...and BBC finance boss Anne Bulford put in a poised performance, rather relaxed despite the financial constraints looming in the next Charter period.

Given that she's charged with taking a further 20% out of a business that's just had 25% taken out, she might have made it look a little more difficult. Interestingly, she faced no questions about BBC Studios. If this progresses, some 2,000 tv production staff will transfer to a wholly-owned subsidiary (with no requirement to publish headcount data). Space will be freed up in existing buildings, possibly leading to further property disposals.  More network radio will be made by indies, with smaller, but real reductions in directly-employed BBC staff.  More online content will be made by indies. And, we're told, these moves will drive both creative and financial competition. Job done ?

  • En passant, BBC Trustee Richard Ayre clearly impressed Committee chair Jesse Norman with his analysis of the regulatory and governance issues that need to be addressed. His analogy on the licence-fee impositions of 2010 and 2015 also deserves noting, perhaps by Ms Bulford - 2015 was better only in the sense of "getting six of the best the first time, and only three the next - it still hurts".  



Danny Boy

A double dishing for Danny Cohen from Lord Hall in front of MPs yesterday: almost sotto voce, the BBC DG had to repeat the admission that the TV tyro was involved in the creation of July's luvvie letter (“In our view, a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain”).

Lord Hall thought such activity was perfectly proper. I think this is wrong; when political parties work behind the scenes with celebs or business leaders or scientists to create "open letters", proper journalists rightly expose the connivance. This letter should have come on BBC-headed note-paper. If these luvvies organised it, where's the promised follow-up ? “During the course of the Charter, we will continue to make the case for a strong BBC at the centre of British life and will be vocal in making the case for the BBC as it approaches its centenary.”

Danny's ears will also have twitched when Lord Hall was asked about The Voice, the indie-produced talent show which is reported to have cost £22m over three years just for the format rights, purchased by Mr Cohen. "My ambition is that the next time we have a big entertainment format on the BBC, it will be made in-house. I hope we find a hit from our in-house stable. That's my aspiration."

That's all a bit traditional from Lord Hall, isn't it ? Hardly an "open BBC" line, but a pretty clear signal to Peter Salmon, new boss of most of the BBC's network tv production. Indies won't like the presumption that Saturday night shiny floor stuff has to go to BBC Television, soon to be BBC Studios. ITV, now owners of The Voice production company might make some noise if the BBC doesn't renew. And Danny won't have many excuses to travel to the States and the South of France for format sales shows.

Come back later for a second post on the DCMS select committtee....

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Grill

New DCMS Select Committee chair Jesse Norman looked less than happy after his first formal cross-examination of BBC DG Lord Hall this morning. He chased Tone on TV boss Danny Cohen's involvement in the creation of the luvvie letter - and on Ben Cooper asking DJ Annie Nightingale to sign it blind - and got some admission of Mr Cohen's involvement but not much more.

More interesting was the BBC side's mild pleasure is saying that the licence feel deal stuck with George Osborne in July was way better than Mark Thompson's October 2010 deal with a younger Ossie. Finance chief Anne Bulford said Thommo's deal required cuts of 24%; Lord Hall's works out at 10%. Of course, Lord Hall faces some income challenges, talent inflation, and needs to do new things - so the "efficiencies" required rise to 20%.




Contented

When someone says they're offering a clear and simple overview of a new proposal, it's possible the offer is obscure, complex - and maybe the proposal itself is unformed.

BBC Director of Digital Ralph Rivera has blogged today about the Charter offer for Auntie to become some form of content aggregator.

"Our aim would be simple – to increase the traffic to, and investment in, original British content. At its heart would be a free offer, with BBC content funded from the licence fee, and commercial content through other business models such as advertising. We would also aim to make it possible to buy and keep programmes, as we’re doing with BBC Store, due to launch soon.

"And these proposals have a clear ambition: to create a platform for Britain’s creativity, and an even better experience for UK audiences and a gateway to that world. We believe that an aggregated service would provide audiences with greater access to UK original content, which in turn would increase traffic, usage and potential revenues for everyone.

"One possible route would be to use BBC iPlayer, which we could open up and put at the service of the sector, using its brand, technology and reach. But there are other ideas too, all of which we want to discuss and agree with partners. Those conversations are just beginning, and there is a lot to work through. I hope this gives an overview and a little more context to last week’s announcement. We believe the time is right for this idea – in fact, this may be the best moment we have to make this work – and I’m excited about the possibilities."

Aggregators in general make their money by providing links to other people's content or services, often taking a slice from both customer (by advertising or subscription) and provider (fees to be on the platform). Existing content and service aggregators include operations like  iTunes, Funny or Die, Uber, Huffington Post and Google News. There's no sign of market failure here, or rationale for using the licence fee to fund such an operation.


Monday, September 14, 2015

Pronounced Dugger

Fighting for the People's BBC will be new Shadow Culture Secretary Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East since 2010.

Michael (McAuley Catholic High School, Doncaster, and BA Politics Nottingham) was born in Edlington, overlooking the Yorkshire Main Colliery, and now lives in Birdwell in his constituency. Sunday nights he makes curries - and often tweets photographic evidence. His grandfather was Anglo-Indian.

Dugher had the odd brush with the Press when working for Gordon Brown, trying to get them to downplay details of a cleaning contract, shared with his brother.

He likes the Beatles, Del Amitri and Sinatra, plays the guitar, and went to the Ivor Novello Awards and the Mercury Music Prize events in 2013, and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2012.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Secondhand watch

The third series of Ripper Street is drifting to a close, with episode 7 of 8 returning 2.71m (13.3%). Is this success ? Will the BBC do a deal for rebroadcasting Series 4 and 5, already in production through funding from Amazon ?

It thankfully beat Piers Morgan's Life Stories, at 2.12m (10.4%), and stayed ahead of a programme about a programme, Great British Bake-Off: An Extra Slice, with 2.07m (10%).

But the big Friday night success was the return of the programme about people watching programmes, Gogglebox, with a very healthy 3.54m (17.3%), adding an extra 598k on +1.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Self-help and help

Fran Unsworth, Director of the BBC's World Service Group, confirms that Auntie wants the Government to get back into spending soft power money on broadcasting. Otherwise, it seems, no expansion.

When we had the last licence-fee-deal-done-in-a-corner, Mark Thompson and Lord Patten anticipated that the BBC might, in time, spend more on World Service output.  Mmmm.

Averages

Someone will find this useful. Average and median salaries across BBC News as of August 2015, disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information enquiry. Click if you're peering.



















Friday, September 11, 2015

I am not a number

As we await more details on the BBC's Nine Box Grid that categorises the performance and potentia of 3,000 managers, I'm grateful to former HR Director Lucy Adams for a Twitter point to a Hardvard Business Review article, "Why more and more companies are ditching performance ratings".

The essence: "In short, we found that social threats and rewards, like one’s sense of status or fairness, activate intense reaction networks in the brain. This explained the intense reactions people had to being assessed on a ratings scale".

"Top ratings lead to high status, promotions, and raises—yet it’s not like at school, where everyone can get an A if they work hard enough. With a forced curve, a manager with a hardworking team of 10 people may only be allowed to give one or two of them the top rating. As a result, people directly compete with each other for rewards, hurting collaboration. As our forthcoming research will show, when Microsoft removed its ratings, employee collaboration skyrocketed."

"Of the 30 companies we studied, one preliminary finding that jumped out was that after a company removed ratings, managers talked to their teams significantly more often about performance (three or four times a year instead of only once). More frequent communication helps with employee engagement, development, and fairer pay, as managers better understand how their people are doing."

Hyped

This week saw some publicity for innovation charity NESTA, and their push to get BBC News to spend some of its money on stories from hyperlocal websites and bloggers - something the BBC is already following up.

NESTA's CEO is Geoff Mulgan, once described as the ultimate New Labour-ite, who claims "BBC Reporter and Presenter" on his CV. The presenting seems to be editions of Radio 4's Analysis, and, on TV, a three part BBC2 series called "In Search Of Power", from 1996. There we find co-presenter Kirsty Wark, producer Richard Klein, now doing such interesting stuff with ITV Factual, and executive producer Helen Boaden, Director of BBC Radio and Queen-alternative of England.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Really interesting antiques

British, Bold Creative - a new daytime quiz about antiques. I can barely contain myself. The throbbing cross-genre creativity of it all is giving me hot and cold flushes. Here's the unedited kernel of the blurb.

BBC One Daytime will be launching a brand new antiques quiz show, For What It’s Worth. The 25 x 45’ series, produced by Tuesday’s Child, is a strategic quiz with simple gameplay plus the tantalising play-a-long of guessing the value of really interesting antiques. 

Fern Britton takes on the role as quiz master and will be joined by a different antiques expert each week. Over three rounds, three pairs of contestants will compete to collect as many of the antiques on offer, hoping to bag the most treasurable items and avoid the tat. 

The Quizzer of the duo will be answering general knowledge questions in order to earn their antiques-buff-partner – The Picker – the chance to select an item for the team’s collection. Over the course of the game, we lose the two teams who have the lowest value collections, leaving the final team to select just one lot from all they have collected. They will have the choice to keep the lot, or be tempted to swap for a mystery lot. Either way, they won’t get the actual item, instead they’ll get the cash value - but have they spotted the high ticket lot? Or have they made a selection that is worthless?

Constant consultation

The BBC Trust has announced a new period of Charter Renewal consultation, this time on the Executive's proposals entitled "British Bold Creative - The BBC's Future 2015". It runs from today until Bonfire Night.

This iterative process is proving a little loose. Many of the proposals in the Bold document are actually Normal, or Sketchy, and some quite Unformed. And bits of the jigsaw are being filled in as we go, with Broadcast hinting we'll hear more about BBC Studios when Peter Salmon is on an RTS Cambridge panel on 17th September.

Bike sheds

Round the back of the Orange Tower at MediaCityUK, you will find the newly-opened Cycle Hub. 300 bike racks are available, at a basic price of £2 a week. If you commit to £200 for a year, you get access to the showers and changing rooms, and a personal locker, in a heated locker room.

Your hosts, Peel Media, have lashed out on four shipping containers, linked by a curved metal and glazed section.


Lovely

Jolly John Whittingdale leaned back expansively in front of the the DCMS Select Committee yesterday, and said everything in the public service broadcasting sector was and would be fine. His Charter renewal White Paper would come in Spring, and he hoped the new Charter and Agreement would be signed off before the old one runs out.

The Select Committee is receiving written submissions up to the end of this month. Before that, next Tuesday morning, Team BBC is up for a grilling.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

World traveller

Meanwhile BBC News boss James Harding is in Dalian, China for the World Economic Forum meeting of New Champions 2015.

He's moderating a session on "The New Silk Road".He will have to return to "The Hair Shirt of Savings" in London soon, to explain where he's making his contribution to the continuing and incomplete programme of Delivering Quality First cuts, and his share of the 1,000 managers to be culled at the request of the DG.

Bold, but just an idea...

BBC English regions and local radio boss David Holdsworth has blogged in defence of the proposal to fund 100 'public service' reporters around the UK, and stressed it's a proposal....

"The suggestion that our plans to to introduce these reporters across the country are an “extension of the BBC the backdoor” is not correct. Any local news organisation that has concerns about an expanding BBC can in fact bid to provide reporters to the Network. They would then be based in that organisation for the benefit of the whole news sector in that region. Bids could come from local and regional papers, agencies, journalism start-ups or citizen bloggers, as well as BBC teams, providing that bidders are both reputable and can meet the BBC Editorial Standards and Guidelines."

Comeback kid

It looks like there might be a moderately swift exit from purdah by Alan Yentob, after the difficulties with collapsed charity Kids Company. Though he didn't make the stage for the BBC's Future 2015 (the document uses "arts" 53 times, "drama" 36, "science" 31, "culture" 29, "music" 96, "partner" and "partnership" 59, and "creativity" a mere 10), Al was squarely defended by executive James Purnell.

"Alan is a huge resource to the BBC and a great adviser on the creativity of our serices", quoth Jim. And Alan was spotted out this week at a private show of paintings by Boris Johnson's mum.

If you can wait till 12th October, you can puchase tickets to see the Mike and Bernie Winters De Nos Jours at the Barbican. Alan will be on stage with Salman Rushdie, promoting his latest book. Tickets are a snip at £16.05 - or £6.43 if you buy the book at £18.99.

Ephraim Hardcastle in the Mail, who's taken an interest in Al's career development for some time, believes there is a fly in the ointment - hope of a peerage has gone. 'He now accepts this is out of the question,’ whispers Ephraim's source.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

From Green to White

The Charter renewal gavotte goes on. The BBC's 'offer' document "The Future of The BBC 2015", in the words of the Guardian's Jane Martinson, poses more questions than it answers. So next to take the dancefloor will be John "Tonioli" Whittingdale , with a White Paper rhumba.

There's a real chance now that this might be much more prescriptive than would normally have been the case, given the lack of a BBC detailed position on national and regional broadcasting, and the Government's need to "do something" about Scotland, and the parallel pressures of English devolution, the Northern Powerhouse, etc.

The BBC says only it will not cut licence fee spending in Scotland as much as it will elsewhere, as it hunts for 20% "savings" over the next five or six years. If the Government forces its hand over Scotland, something else will have to give.

  • Given how careful Lord Hall and James Purnell are about not wishing to scare horses, there will be questions today about how much James Harding and his English regions boss David Holdsworth tested the water with the idea of 100 public service reporters. Balloons and lead come to mind.

And in Scotland...

The Herald:. Currently, almost every town in Scotland has a local newspaper covering it with a usually small staff of one or two reporters – can 100 BBC reporters across the whole of the UK really offer the same kind of service? And if it is designed to be complementary to what is already there, the danger is that the owners of local newspapers may say: if the BBC is providing local news to us for free, do we need so many reporters of our own? In other words, the BBC's offer of help could end up costing jobs

What the papers say

The Telegraph: As the corporation faces the renewal of its Royal Charter and the licence fee that underpins its £5 billion budget, one of the issues it faces is that its vast regional news operation is putting local newspapers and other commercial media out of business. They cannot compete with a rival that has near-limitless resources and the ability to give away its news for free.

The almost surreal response offered by Lord Hall to this concern was the creation of “a network of 100 public service reporters across the country” who will provide video and other content for commercial media outlets. In effect, the BBC’s answer to a problem caused by there being too many BBC journalists providing local news is to recruit more BBC journalists to provide local news.

The simple and better answer - for the BBC to reduce its activities in areas where the private sector can provide - was apparently not even considered by the corporation’s numerous and well-paid executives, who bizarrely deny that the BBC’s extensive coverage of local news has any adverse impact on local media firms.

Financial Times: In a world in which television is merging with the web, it makes little sense to draw hard lines between what the BBC does on TV and online. To fulfil its remit the corporation needs to be present in both. But rather than offer political sops to justify its online presence in sensitive areas, Lord Hall should set out what the BBC needs to do in text to fulfil its mission — and otherwise show restraint. Magazine features and local news do not make the cut.

The BBC has warned the income squeeze it faces will require deep cuts in the provision of services. This will necessitate hard choices. The website cannot be exempt from these.

Letter to The Times about the creation of 100 local "public service" reporters: This is a job presently done by a countrywide network of individual freelancers, stringers and small agencies such as ours, although of course we expect to be paid for our work. It says much for the BBC’s inability to get the beam out of its eye that it proposes to address one anti-competitive misuse of the TV licence — ie, the pressure that it puts on other publishers through its news website — by the creation of another. Tim Bugler Central Scotland News Agency

The Guardian on the Ideas Service: The BBC has yet to show that it is willing to work as a truly equal collaborator, instead of dominating its so-called partners as has so often been the case in the past. It will also have to show that the Ideas Service is of genuine benefit to its new partners and to its audiences, rather than simply a self-serving, circular way for it to suggest how open it is.

Is this really the public-service game-changer the BBC wants it to be? The kind of organisation it is proposing to work with, after all, is already producing its own content: museums, scientific bodies and universities have become makers of public-service material that they are eagerly and efficiently distributing themselves, though without, perhaps, the formidable reach the BBC can offer.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Bits that caught my eye

Some odds and ends from the BBC's Future Plans - my chapter headings, not theirs !

A slow death for the News Channel

We will make a transition from rolling news to streaming news. BBC Newstream will be a new streaming offer for mobiles. It will be a more video-based service, complemented by audio, graphics and text live from BBC News. It offers the possibility of news that is personal, portable and on-demand.

Council and court reporting jobs

Under this proposal, the BBC would allocate licence fee funding to invest in a service that reports on councils, courts and public services in towns and cities across the UK. The aim is to put in place a network of 100 public service reporters across the country. Reporting would be available to the BBC but also, critically, to all reputable news organisations. In addition, while it would have to be impartial and would be run by the BBC, any news organisation— news agency, independent news provider, local paper as well as the BBC itself—could compete to win the contract to provide the reporting team for each area.

Data journalism

We propose to create a new hub for data journalism, which serves both the BBC and makes available data analysis for news organisations across the UK. It will look to partner a university in the UK, as the BBC seeks to build a world-class data journalism facility that informs local, national and global news coverage.

News Bank (doesn't sound that new)

The News Bank would make available all pieces of BBC video content produced by the BBC’s regional and local news teams to other media providers. Subject to rights and further discussion with the industry we would also look to share longer versions of content not broadcast, such as sports interviews and press conferences.

Local radio - clear as mud

We want BBC local radio to broaden its agenda to find new ways to reflect the cultural richness of their patch.

News online

We will deliver a different BBC News homepage in each Nation.

The Scottish Question unanswered

After devolution, the Scottish referendum and in a world where large aspects of public policy are devolved in the Nations, there is now a much stronger case for providing a different balance in how we serve audiences with the most relevant BBC News and current affairs. We look forward to exploring the various options with our partners, stakeholders, audiences and National Governments through the process of Charter Review.

We want Government money for World Service

We would aim for any increase in public funding for the World Service to be matched by external income for our other global news services over the Charter. This means commercial ambition; seeking revenue from audiences outside the UK; and being open to funding from governments and civil society

Mini-BBC-Spotify

We have developed a digital music proposal with the music industry, which builds on BBC Music’s Playlister. It would make the 50,000 tracks the BBC broadcasts every month available to listen online, for a limited period. Audiences would be able to access this music via playlists curated by the BBC, and they would be able to build their own playlists based on the music they hear and love on the BBC.

We want to keep doing online stuff, but others eventually will make the majority of the content

In online, we would aim to maximise the volume of competition in editorial output. 60%-70% of online content spend (i.e. almost all non-news and non-spor t spend) would be open for competition by the end of the next Charter period.

BBC Studios, BBC Store and Tim Davie will make us more money

We forecast that the impact of these new initiatives, coupled with continuing strong returns from the underlying BBC Worldwide por tfolio, would be around £1.2bn in cumulative returns to the public service BBC over the next five years—a more than 15% increase on returns over the previous five years.

No more money for Scotland

We will protect funding for the Nations, ensuring they are cut less than other areas, with our spending on services going down overall in real terms, we would not be able to reverse the decline in UK original content spend, invest in the World Service, or fund a net increase in spending in the Nations.

Availability

Is it news or isn't it ?  Sky News and Eamonn Holmes took pleasure in carrying Lord Hall's Charter plea live this morning at 0830. The BBC News Channel stuck to its half hour business show, shared with BBC World TV, which saves James Harding money. BBC Breakfast stuck to Bill Turnbull chatting to racing driver Mark Webber.

The event was streamed online on the entertainment section of the BBC news website, but halfway through the warm bath of the inevitable promotional film, the captions were obliterated by a super-imposed caption says "BBC Future Plans - Promotional Film".

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Outsiders

After last night's brief glimpse of the contestants' terpsichorean prowess, the bookmakers have decided we may have two useless national treasures in the 2015 Strictly Come Dancing Stakes, after all.

The shortest price you can get on preying mantis Jeremy Vine and smiley totterer Carol Kirkwood is now 33/1, with Betfred. My outside tip, Helen George, has shortened to joint second favourite with Georgia May Foote and Jamelia.

Katie Derham, paired with house national treasure Anton Du Beke, is around 14/1. If he can get some of the liquid cosh that she's been given to present the Proms, she might avoid an early drop. Calm down, dear, calm down.

Sprinkler

The colander of leaks/briefings that anticipate the BBC's Charter proposals, due on Monday, continues as predicted in the Sundays.

The Guardian/Observer has details of a new online portal for kids to be called iPlay, providing a “single, online front-door for children to the wealth of the whole BBC and our trusted partners beyond – giving more content to children that matures with them, across more platforms, in a trusted way”.

The Telegraph has what could be the first of many pick'n'mix options in the proposals: "BBC Four could be closed as the corporation unveils plans to focus its money on developing high quality new dramas like Poldark, Wolf Hall and Sherlock. The closure of smaller television channels is being considered to help the BBC free up an additional £50 million a year for drama designed to compete with US networks and online streaming services like Netflix and Amazon."

And the Sunday Times, paywalled, says "Lord Hall, the BBC’s director-general, will tomorrow announce plans to launch an 'Ideas Service' despite warnings from George Osborne, the chancellor, that the corporation is becoming “imperial in its ambitions”. The venture will link BBC television and radio programmes with material from partners including the Science Museum, the Tate, the British Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company."

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Global play

The Guardian has the first of what I expect to be a generously-sized colander of leaks from the BBC's Charter proposals, formally due at 0830 on Monday.

It says the BBC is to seek financial support from the government to expand World Service operations to target North Korea and get back on terms in Russia, and other tricky areas. The offer is, apparently, that the BBC will match Government funding, presumably via the Foreign Office, if, in return the Global News operation on tv, already taking ads, is allowed to get even more commercial. 

This doesn't look like an offer driven by high principle. The big advantage of the BBC taking on the original £245m pa that funded World Service from the FCO was that Auntie could more believably say it wasn't a tool of Government. A principled deal would allow the BBC to make its own decisions about where and when it broadcasts - the last control still requiring FCO approval for change. Plus an increasingly commercial BBC Global News, ie BBC World tv, makes it lose the very difference that wins respect for its editorial choices around the globe. Soon, just another satellite news channel....

Friday, September 4, 2015

High performers

As we all get our heads around the BBC's talent strategy, I'm grateful to reader Avu Perfurmer for pointing me to the programme for the Talent Management and Development Summit, being held at the Hilton in Canary Wharf in October.

Amongst the speakers is Damien Shieber, BBC HR Partner, Talent and Organisational Development, on the topic "Building a high performance culture with talent".  Damien joined the Hughes D'Aeth provisional HR wing in Birmingham in July, after a career path from Manchester University through Capita and RWE Npower.

Damien believes that the days of "rank and yank" should be behind us, encouraging managers instead to have "performance chats", and treat end-of-year assessments as "celebrations". Except, of course, if the chat is about redundancy, or being TUPE'd across to BBC Studios.

Damien is also hot on Bake-off and on customer service standards.

Fair exchange

A first little schedule shuffle-ette from new Radio 3 Controller Alan Davey features more music "from Europe" at the weekends.

Radio 3 In Concert in Sunday evenings will feature "highlights from concerts across Europe".  Drama on 3 moves to follow the concert show, then comes a new offering, Early Music Late (geddit ?). The first EML will feature (no sniggering) Les Muffatti (a group, not a soloist) at the Liege Festival in Belgium. This Brussels ensemble of 12 are named in tribute to composer Georg Muffat.

Students of Radio 3 scheduling will know of the EBU exchange, where broadcasters swap programme at little or no cost to each other. Using more of it saves money, though I'm sure it's all excellent.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

One to go

Freeview Play will launch in October, say Freeview and Digital UK.

The service provides a joined-up front end inside your telly to access catch-up and on-demand output from the UK's free-to-air services, from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Some Panasonic sets already have the hardware built in, and will automatically update when the project goes live.

OK, so where's BBC Store ?

Good vibrations

The morning after Rupert Murdoch stiffens the resolve of his NewsUK leadership, the Times calls for the BBC's online offering to close or go behind a paywall.

A dominant and publicly funded publisher is alien to the ethos of a vibrant democracy. The BBC should recognise this before it crowds out competition further. It should either make its digital newspaper a competitively priced subscriber service or it should end it.

Studious

Come Monday, it'll be interesting to see where the proposals for "BBC Studios" end up in Lord Hall's vision of the organisation's future.

The idea is to semi-float most tv production away from the Mothership, a la BBC Wordwide, away from salary scrutiny, away from inconvenient career progression commitments, away from tiresome terms and conditions of service, away from Freedom of Information nosey-parkers, so that it can regain it's apparently missing creative jive and sell programmes to all-comers.

As you might guess, I'd argue case not proven. Former BBC and ITV producer Mike Flood Page, now studying for a Ph D in Glasgow, makes the case again on the Our Beeb website, and it's worth a read.

However, if "BBC production struggles to attract the best talent because it can’t offer the right incentives", why would the creation of BBC Studios drive down costs ?

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Back in harness

Congratulations to Rebekah Brooks, now back at the helm of News UK just over four years since her resignation, and returning this time as a working mum.

Her compensation for loss of office was estimated at £16m. At one stage, it was thought that some of that was being used to pay her legal fees and costs in the phone-hacking trial, which have been estimated at between £5m and £7m. They will have including the rental of a Georgian townhouse in Bloomsbury, within walking distance of the Old Bailey.

But in October last year, it became clear that NewsUK had been indemnifying Brooks' legal costs, when claims for repayment were suddenly dropped.

So, if evenly spread, she's been struggling by on £4m a year. Wonder what her salary might be ?

Break

Bill Turnbull hits sixty next January, and has decided that's the time to stop getting up at 0300 to present BBC Breakfast, which he first joined in 2001.

William Robert Jolyon Turnbull went to Eton and then Edinburgh, where he wrote for and then edited The Student, the UK's oldest student newspaper, founded in 1887 by Robert Louis Stevenson. Other editors of the weekly have included Gordon Brown, Robin Cook and David Steel. He didn't finish his social sciences degree, but progressed to the Centre for Journalism Studies at Cardiff, thence back to Scotland as a trainee with Radio Clyde.

He moved to Rainow, on the edge of the Peak District in 2012, leaving the bees of the family home in Jordans, Buckinghamshire in care. In 2013, he was away from the Breakfast sofa for a month, with a 'mystery illness', which he tweeted as being 'off games'. He's told the papers he'd like to settle down in Suffolk.

Here's a wild guess: none of the other current male regulars will fill Bill's sofa dent come February.

Intern the BBC

The UK's newspapers would like BBC Online operations to be shackled to the wall of a cold, dark and dripping cell for a while, while they catch up. Ideally, they'd like 10 shackles, but they're leaving the exact design to the Government/George Osborne.

That's the broad message from the News Media Association, chaired by Mike Darcey, chief executive of The Times and Sun publisher, News UK, with deputy BBC good-guy-gone-bad Ashley Highfield, now CEO of Johnston Press.

The NMA commissioned a report from one of the BBC's favourite boutique consultants Oliver & Olbhaum, to help make their case in the Charter Renewal debate. O&O, with no new research, have revisited existing data and reports, and re-diagnosed the patient that is regional and local newspaper operations. With all the conviction of Dr Gregory House, they assert that the patient has turned the corner, and with that nasty BBC tied up in a corner for five or ten years, will soon be leaping about, generating the profit margins plurality of views that newspaper shareholders dream of, day in and day out. Any suggestion that our modern newspaper barons have been ruthlessly cutting back on journalistic effort to maintain income at the expense of investment is rebutted. I think.

O&O are particulary grumpy with BBC Director of News James Harding's analysis, entitled The Future of News (perhaps because they weren't commissioned to help with that one). They offer an almost line by line rebuttal of its key points, over five packed pages at the end of their report.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Creative housing

Salford Council finally considers a planning application for four square-jawed tower blocks of flats at MediaCity this week, trumpeted as "1,036 luxury apartments in the heart of MediaCityUK with assured 6% NET rental yields". Yes, they've been marketed for some time without planning permission.

The council will consider a report that estimates the developer's potential profit at £38m, yet, they're only offering £1.3m for local "improvements" - and no "affordable housing". Bound to sail through, eh ?

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