Charlie

The new chairman of Channel 4, Charles Gurassa, boasts some limited tv experience. At York University, he overlapped with Greg Dyke, then a mature student. Charlie tooks his economics degree to Thomas Cook as a graduate trainee, and rose to run their offices in Hammersmith. Staff were rewarded with a pyjama party at the Palais. Then he was sent to Cook's Hong Kong offices, and featured regularly on the local tv channel as a travel expert.

After ten years, he joined British Airways to sort out their holiday business, and helped pick Barbara Cassani to run budget operation Go! in 1998 (It was Gone! in 2001). Thence to Thomson Holidays, where, as Chief Executive, he did more than nicely out of the sale to a German company which resulted in "Tui".

From 2003, he moved from wage slave to serial non-executive. He was enticed into chairing Virgin Mobile by Richard Branson, which floated in 2004.  Two years later, Richard kept Charlie pretty much in the dark when negotiating the sale of the operation to NTL, but he was probably well rewarded for any embarassment. 2006 saw a landing in a tidy $4.5m villa in Notting Hill for his young family, to match his farmhouse in Tuscany - which produces around 750 bottles of wine a year and some olive oil.

He was chairman of Vanguard Car Rental until 2006, when it sold its European operation to Europcar for an estimated £600m. He was chairman of DVD deliverers LoveFilm, until the £200m sale to Amazon in 2011.  He was chairman of Phones4U until the £700 million sale to a private equity firm in 2011. He was chairman of the Parthenon Media Group, with a back catalogue of wildlife and other factual programmes, until its 2012 sale to Sky, estimated at £16.5m. He was chairman of mobile telecoms clearing house MACH when it was taken over by Syniverse, for an estimated £490m.

He says he's a Chelsea fan.

Terry Wogan

Terry Wogan's first BBC show was for the old Light Programme, in September 1966.  He'd been working as a newsreader, announcer and presenter for RTE for around two years, and, in a rare

reversal, the network had decided to drop his tv quiz, Jackpot - a sort of Criss-Cross quiz. So, at 28 and recently married, he looked for some extra work, and landed a once-a-week gig presenting Midday Spin down the line from Dublin (with Johnny Beerling, later Controller Radio 1, sent over to mind him as producer) and then some occasional fronting of Housewives' Choice.

The Light Programme re-merged as Radio 2 in September 1967, sharing rather a lot of programming with Radio 1. Terry moved to Late Night Extra twice a week, now flying over regularly from Dublin. The show was billed in the Radio 2 pages of the Radio Times with the words "as Radio 1".  If 1968 belonged musically to the Beatles, Beachboys, BeeGees and BoxTops, this bit of Radio1/2 sailed on regardless as if antimaccasars were still all the rage. Here's a typical offering...

10pm Late Night Extra
Terry Wogan with music and news; pop; people and places;
featuring FREDDIE BALLERINI AND HIS ORCHESTRA
With JO MARNEY 
CLINTON FORD with ERIC GALLOWAY AND THE LATIN BEATS
Produced by RICHARD WILLCOX
Freddie Ballerini and his Orchestra are at Quaglino's Restaurant. London

Quite a showcase for a little light irony from your presenter. (There were, however, some pioneering moments in the field of reggae.) In July 1969, Terry stood in for Jimmy Young, and the younger ears of Radio 1 producers took to his style and humour. By December, he'd taken over the afternoon show from Dave Cash.

With the impending arrival of legal commercial stations, Radio 1 and 2 began sharpening up their acts in 1972. Wogan swapped chairs with the more avuncular John Dunn, who'd been Radio 2's breakfast host since the start. And once in that chair, Terry never really left.

Box ticking

Transparency is still tricky at the BBC. The Mail seems to have tripped up new BBC TV Uber Controller Charlotte Moore on her Declaration of Personal Interests. There's an either/or box, and she'd been advised to enter Y in the positive box, yet not published the information that she was secretary of the company handling her husband's work as a cameraman.

This is a furrow ploughed before by the Mail. In May last year they noted BBC2 had commissioned a Mary Shelley/Lord Byron documentary from Oxford Scientific Films, with executive producer Steve Condie - otherwise Mr Kim Shillinglaw, husband of the Controller of BBC2 and 4.  A BBC spokesman told the Mail at the time that Ms Shillinglaw made the ‘appropriate personal declarations’ but it did not publish these online for data protection reasons.

There may be more to come - BBC TV executives who have made a mark in the box "There are personal interests to declare", but published no further details include Emma Swain, Susan Hogg, Nathalie Humphreys, Roger Leatham and acting big cheese Mark Linsey.

Alternative thinking

I hope there's some sharp lateral thinking going on about the beleaguered BBC News Channel. It looks vulnerable to internal voices who think it should close, in favour of an online operation of mini-packages and a little light streaming. The proponents of this move favour this option rather than cutting their own budgets - and I suspect many are in the Newsgathering Catering Corps.

Newsgathering has grown like Topsy - or Halliburton - over the years, demanding more and more people to service more and more outlets. If you want to see how it plans, watch this video about setting up tv coverage of a piece of paper - the announcement of a Royal Baby. Enjoy the conversation, as at least five people discuss the framing of a single question off the back of a package.  And then watch the two videos below. Newsgathering also loves the long tail of online - packages which don't make network news still get an outing, with little quality control, and the producers and correspondents get a tick in the productivity ledgers beloved of the department.

The latest idea seems to be ease the assisted-broadcast-death of the News Channel by giving even more hours to BBC World News, an operation that has yet to say clearly if it's making a profit or not. And if the logic of dying 24-hour news channels is right, what right has BBC World to survive in the hard-nosed commercial portfolio of BBC Worldwide ?  If  international viewing figures are hard to split out, then advertising rates are public. $4800 will buy you a 30 second peak-time slot on BBC World News in Europe, famous for its democratic deficit. It falls to $650 in North America, where the big networks charge over $250,000 for peak, and $210 for Africa - hardly worth the processing cost.

Devolutionary pressures suggest the best option is for the News Channel to keep going and to do more deals with BBC2. BBC2 can be switched regionally; the BBC News Channel can't. BBC2 is the place to deliver whatever answer is produced to the Scottish Six question, and then answer it again for Wales and Northern Ireland. BBC News, which already shares the Victoria Derbyshire show with BBC2, should also share the Daily Politics - you can't imagine Andrew Neil wanting to miss a big breaking story.  That should produce some savings whilst Parliament is sitting.

And the News Channel is a showcase for good tv journalism that can't quite be levered into BBC1. The RTS nominations show that.  The Newsgathering tail must not be allowed to wag the dog - and the BBC shouldn't cede 24 hour UK tv news to Sky, yet.

Nags

DAB and online radio statipn TalkSport 2 is to launch officially at 10am on March 15th - live from a Sky Bet box on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival. It will be instructive to see how this extension of coverage, sanctioned by Ofcom, is different from what the main Talksport Channel does. Last year both the Breakfast and Afternoon shows came from the festival, with commentary on two races a day.

BBC Radio 5Live signed a four year-racing commentary deal, which covers Cheltenham, back in 2012; I can't find any record of an extension beyond 2016 yet...

Recognition factor

The modern, competitive BBC News will be mulling over the Royal Television Society Journalism award nominations this morning.

James Harding cares about gongs, and has driven a change in the judging system. Last year, BBC News' myriad elements collected 6 gongs (plus one for an indie commissioned by Panorama). This year, they have 20 nominations heading to the ceremony on 17th February.

The News Channel, again currently feeling unloved, has done well - nominated in the new "Breaking News" category for the Paris attacks, and up against CNN and AP for the same story. The excellent and terrifying Our World: The Killing of Farkhunda also gets the News Channel a chance of a prize, in International Current Affairs. Victoria Derbyshire is nominated for Network Presenter of the Year, with her show on both the News Channel and BBC2, and one of her programme reporters, Benjamin Zand is nominated as Young Talent. Jeremy Bowen's session with President Assad on the News Channel is up for Interview of the Year. And, happily, the News Channel is also nominated in the News Channel of the Year, against Sky News and Al Jazeera English.

The "exclusive" monsters of Newsgathering will be pleased to get The Unmasking of Jihadi John up for Scoop of The Year, up against Newsnight's Kids Company coverage and BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight. But they'll be less happy at getting no nominations for Home Coverage, International Coverage and Television Journalist of the Year - commiserations to those who spent hours stitching entries together.  James Harding's persuading of Carrie Gracie back to China results in a nomination as Specialist Journalist

Huw Edwards and the Ten team will be delighted to be in the running for Daily News Programme of the Year, against Channel 4 News and Sky at Five. Panorama's home grown Bank of Tax Cheats with Richard Bilton is up for Current Affairs Home.

Holding story

Busy lines

BBC rune readers will be mulling over the corporation's new contract with BT to supply broadcast connections across the organisation. It's to last for seven years, with a possible extension by a further three. BT must presumably be happy that BBC Charter is secure beyond the idea of a five-year review, whispered in the DCMS.

The new deal is the fruit of Project Aurora, an entertaining scheme devised by BBC engineers to replace the Siemens/Atos mega contract of 2004 with multiple smaller contracts that will require more BBC engineers to manage them.  BT's network will carry all video, audio and data traffic, as well as fixed line telephony, ISDN and broadband services.

In headline terms, this bit looks like value. The Siemens/Atos total outsourcing deal was running, by my estimate, at over £160m a year. The BT element comes out at £14m p.a., though we are not told how much Vodafone will still get for running a key data centre, mobile phone services and extra lines in London.

Tighter

It looks like consultation time is over, and the BBC's Anne Bulford is imposing a new expenses policy which is to apply to all staff.

There'll be no claims allowed for 1st Class rail travel - even if advance booking might make the ticket cheaper than standard (it's apparently a 'reputational' thing), and all bookings have to be made via appointed supplier, The Trainline. There'll be no taxis in London zones 1-3, unless heavy goods are involved and the cap on taxi journey length comes down from 40 miles to 25 miles.

For hotels, only bookings through the BBC's appointed supplier will be covered.

In an organisation that clearly expects to march on a regularly fed-stomach, staff working away from base for more than 5 hours can claim £6 towards scam (but no booze); if the shift extends to 10 hours, another £10 is claimable. The 5 hour/£6 seems to be the only major point Anne has given ground on, since the proposals first appear in mid-October.

Class

A PR tip for BBC Studios and Post Production: invest either in quality finishes or the services of a professional architectural photographer.

Cameras from the tv trade press have been allowed into some of the peripheral facilities around the three tv studios that have been refurbished in Television Centre. The associated articles are supposed to drum up bookings for work from Spring next year - not only has technical equipment not yet been installed, it hasn't been chosen.

Here's a shot of a "star dressing room", with sort of Premier Inn theme, and the luxury of reaf MDF; and the holding area outside TC1, which used to be known as Red Assembly, and home to the Red Tea Bar, later, the Star Bar. Glistening with architectural fluorescent tubes, and all the charm and detail of the Ramsgate Ferry Terminal.

Encontrado

THERE he is. Alan Yentob is in the Sofitel Legend Santa Clara Hotel for the Colombian version of the Hay Festival, in Cartagena Des Indias.

The ex-BBC Creative Director features on a number of panels.  Today, he's 'Remembering William Shakespeare', alongside Simon Schama, Hisham Matar, Deborah Levy, Daniel Hahn and Nell Leyshon. Tomorrow he'll be 'Remembering David Bowie' with Jaime Byng, James Celnik and Hanif Kureishi, with the conversation guided by W11 neighbour Rosie Boycott (available en directo via streaming). On Saturday, he turns interlocutor for a session entitled 'What is what matters in society?' (this maybe a poor example of Google Translate's work), with Yuval Noah and Ha Joon Chang. And in the afternoon, he's back on 'a panel of journalists' discussing 'The media and its challenges'.

There may even be time for a South American recreation of his Friday morning coffee sessions with Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi.

Vital statistics

Given what we've learned about "dialling up" messages, it's clear that things can only get better inside the BBC. And given the number of HR operatives with Engagement in their job title, it's handy that the latest staff survey, for 2015, shows Engagement Is Up, to 67%, by 1% point, compared with a UK average of 61%.

It's even more of a triumph when you realise that the number of people who could be bothered to fill in the survey, usually a key metric of the mumbo-jumbo that makes up Engagement Theory, has actually gone down - 54% of staff, compared with 55% in 2014, and 34% of freelances and contractors, compared with 46% in the last equivalent run round the houses.

And there are healthy, single figure percentage increases in those agreeing with 34 out of 41 statements that were asked last time. The only two going the wrong way are "My workload is usually achievable in my normal working hours " and "I have the technologies and tools I need to do my job", both down 1%.

Comparisons given with UK norms are selective, so here's my selection of their selection. "I'm rewarded fairly for what I do through pay, benefits and flexible options" - 40% at Auntie strongly agree/tend to agree, compared with a 48% average. "I have confidence in decisions made by the Executive Team and my Divisional Leadership Team" - 43% happy-ish, compared with a UK average of 55%.  This is odd, because 75% support the BBC's strategy and objectives (UK average 58%) - is the problem at Divisional level ?

Phone in

The Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival has unbranded its website pretty sharpish, as the newspaper today officially pulled its plug on close to thirty years of sponsorship.

BT has stepped in, to join YouTube as principal co-sponsors in a three-year deal, but their names goes below the line - "brought to you by, etc".  The BBC is listed amongst other "major sponsors" such as Sky, Channel 4, ITV and the BBC-part-owned UKTV.

In other news, we note that BBC Head of Current Affairs Fiona Campbell chairs the Advisory Committee, with members including Anna Mischon, Head of Production, Current Affairs. Still, that should leave Fiona's deputy, Jim Gray, ably minding the office.

Purler

Struggling to find 'on brief' stories today.

Here's a notice from the Gentleman's Magazine of July 1808, from the section "Obituaries, with anecdotes, of Remarkable People".

Purl was made from ale infused with the tops of wormwood plants.

Intense

It will come as no surprise that the various press releases and background reports from the DCMS on the growth of Britain's creative industries do not include the letters "BBC".

The "gross value added" by those industries identified as 'creative', from jewellery making to PR, was £84.1bn in 2014 - 5.2 per cent of the UK economy. For four years running the creative industries have grown as a proportion of the total UK GVA. GVA of the Creative Industries increased by 8.9 per cent between 2013 and 2014. This compares to 4.6 per cent for the whole of the UK. In June last year, BBC DG Lord Hall warned “One of my pleas would be: this ecology works. Don’t screw around with it".  Osborne already has.

• One of the component parts of the GVA calculations requires an assessment of each individual sector's "creative intensity" - i.e. the proportion of their total workforce engaged in creative work. Radio chums will like their ranking....(Click to go large).

Happier times

"Anguished" Rona Fairhead, last (tbc) Chairman of the BBC Trust, seems to have had a fairly enjoyable six months up to September 2015, according to the latest hospitality and expenses disclosures.

She attended the First Night of the Proms with her husband, as a guest of Lord Hall, and then hosted a BBC box, again with her husband, for three nights (Fiddler on the Roof, Beethoven and Berlioz, and the Last Night) at a cost of nearly £3,300k - plus £20 on Proms brochures.

She took her daughter to Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, staying overnight in a hotel, and making a donation to Children in Need for the "estimated hotel cost". She took her son to the FA Cup Final in the Royal Box as a guest of BBC Sport, making a contribution to Sport Relief. She went to the Chelsea Flower Show with her husband as a guest of KMPG. She attended the Economist summer party as a guest of Zanny Minton-Beddoes, James Harding's World Service co-presenter.

In expenses spent on external contacts, she charged £75.38 for lunch at Claridges, £21.60 for breakfast at a branch of The Botanist, and £6.75 for coffee at Villandry. An internal contact got a bargain lunch at Villandry, for £12.38.

In travel, she claimed for one New York taxi.

Previous Trust Director Jon Zeff managed one last claim for his Java fix - at RIBA, £5.50 for coffee with an external contact, on April Fools Day.  

Chart news

The 'news' that 67% of children have, or have access to a tablet, is reflected in the most recent catch-up viewing statistics from BARB.

In the week ending 10th January, CBBC's "Millie Inbetween" (The Guitar Hero episode) stood at 17 in the list of Top 50 programmes watched on-demand. "Bing - Paddling Pool", from CBeebies, was at 49, and "Our School", from CBBC, was at 50.

Not wrong long

As the BBC culls its current senior managers, it's probably right that HR Director Valerie Hughes D'Aeth finds time to take part in the HR Future Leaders Forum on 10th February, in case she finds some.

One notes that, whilst former BBC personnel boss Lucy Adams is less and less concerned about formal processes (here's a belter: Is HR sucking the life out of talent ?), our Val likes rules. She's advertised for an "HR Specialist Governance" (aren't all of them experts on the handbook ?) and an "HR Specialist Quality". The rubric says this role "will be responsible for developing and maintaining a culture of continuous process improvement across the Service Centre and the establishment of a "Right First Time" philosophy."  Is that as opposed to the current ?

Spot turn

Emily Maitlis tells the Mail On Sunday "A BBC manager once said that – as a woman – if I wanted my career to go to the next step I would have to do Strictly Come Dancing. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t".

We'll do our best to identify the miscreant. Meanwhile, for charity, here are some blurry stills of Emily doing a cha-cha-cha for Children in Need in 2011.

Idle rumours

In the new simpler BBC, there's at least one new management meeting that will make staff nervous - the Redeployment Oversight Group. It's the fruit of new negotiations with unions to try to assure those at risk of redundancy that they'll be properly and fairly considered for other jobs.

This may or may not apply to Newsnight, where careless talk may be threatening Ian Katz's attempts to recruit a suitably groovy replacement for departed Political Editor Allegra Stratton. 

Meanwhile, BBC spokespeople continue to tap dance across the full width of pinheads. I particularly liked this one in the Independent on Friday, in response to speculation on the future of the News Channel as a broadcast operation.  

“As James Harding has said, over the next few months we’ll be looking at how BBC News should respond to changing technology and audience demands, and to the need to make financial savings across the organisation. Any talk about the BBC News Channel is idle rumour, we are discussing our priorities not taking decisions.”

If decisions aren't taken soon, Anne Bulford will foreclose on News.

Yankee dollar

The Graham Norton Show seems to be back on BBC America - for the first time in nearly a year. They've rejoined Series 18 at Episode 15, scheduled on Monday evening at 10pm local.

There's been some sort of mysterious flirtation with Harvey Weinstein - the New York Times said he'd bought the North American rights back in July 2014, with a view to spinning off a portfolio of tv programmes from his film operation. Harvey, backer of Phwoar and Peace, repeated his faith in Graham's talent, after appearing as a guest in the show in January.

On show

I dipped into two of BBC1's big Saturday entertainment offers last night.

The Voice ran for 1 hour and 17 minutes. The contestants sang their songs in less than 17 minutes. Contemporary tunes included This Ole House from 1954, Rescue Me from 1965, I Got The Music In Me from 1974, and Bad Case of Loving You from 1979. The banter between the judges would have made anybody else on the same bus move seats.

Earlier, The Getaway Car, ("a really fun, new adrenaline charged entertainment show" - Charlotte Moore), made crazy golf look inevitable as the next big BBC Sport commission. There are another nine episodes to come, which takes us to the end of March. Is there a chance that Lord Hall can persuade Charlotte to add something more uplifting, say, before we get the Charter Renewal White Paper ?

Eaves dropping

A new boss for BBC Monitoring - Sara Beck, the BBC's Deputy Head of Newsgathering, comes out from the penumbra of lustrous Jonathan Munro, and joins in February. She'll continue the hunt for £2.5m in additional income at Caversham - or oversee more post closures. If she gets through that, she may have to move the whole operation, to make more property savings.

Sarah joined the BBC straight from university in 1991, as a producer with the Russian service, and became Moscow bureau editor in 1998, covering both Chechen wars and the resignation of Russian president Boris Yeltsin. She moved to Jerusalem in 2000 as editor of the Middle East bureau and then Singapore two years later, covering the Bali bombing while heading the Asia bureau.

She shares the honour of co-editing The Battle for Iraq, published in 2003 - essays on the second Gulf War by BBC correspondents. Her emails also made the 2012 Pollard Report - taking the proposed Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile off the Managed Risk Programmes List, and telling Newsnight ‘Just so you know…. have taken Jimmy Saville [sic] off for now and will put back on when it’s imminent. The document goes quite far – in Vision etc – and we thought it might be best to keep [it] off just for now".

Balance sheet

I'd hate to be really difficult about this, but the Guardian, itself facing a new round of job cuts, is being a little naive in totalling up this week's BBC 'savings' on departing staff.

Here's an extract from Mark Sweeney's piece.

"The departure of Hadlow means the BBC has saved almost £1m in salaries: Hadlow (£235,050), Cohen (£317,800), Shillinglaw (£227,800) and Yentob (£183,300)."

On the other side of the balance sheet: I suspect the new Controller TV Channels, Charlotte Moore will get a salary rise (from her present package of £268k). Kim Shillinglaw's post, as Controller of BBC2 and BBC4, is being closed, thus she is entitled to redundancy. She joined Auntie in 2006, so, with a month of her final salary times ten, as a pay-off calculation, she'll easily reach the Lord Hall cap of £150k.

If the HR department, under the constant vigilance of Valerie Hughes D'Aeth, can be persuaded to declare Janice Hadlow's role in special projects a real job, she's also redundant, and entitled to £150k. When Hadlow stepped down from BBC2, Adam Barker became Acting Controller, with, presumably, some salary enhancement.  He gets Acting Editor now with Kim Shillinglaw going - another little wedge. And there wasn't a post of Editor BBC2 before, so the whole of Shillinglaw's salary won't be saved - perhaps a post in the lower ranks of the Channel will close.

So in headline terms, the "saving" halves. The real money will come if the people who surround tv executives go as well - the business managers, chief assistants, advisors, PAs etc. It would be enetertaining to know if presenter Alan Yentob still retains an office and PA in his role as Chairman of BBC Films...

The Molecule Of Life

You can tell that the BBC is serious about something when it takes three press officers to compile the releases. The BBC's Shakespeare Festival 2016 today gets a dual launch from Lord Hall and Helen Boaden, constructed by Sarah Hall, Emma Fox and Laura Gildersleve (an ancient Saxon name, pre-Shakespeare, it seems).  But which of them is guilty of penning the line "Shakespeare's in our DNA" - or did Lord Hall add it himself ?

Ta-raa

Janice Hadlow is finally exiting Auntie's bosom, after close to two years on what appear to be not-too-taxing special projects - on a salary of £232k, carried forward from her old role of Controller BBC2 and 4. And, even with broken service, she should qualify for the maximum £150k redundo....

Snow job

BBC News' professional interviewers with a hour or so to spare can watch a live stream of their thought-leader James Harding wrangling new insights from the famously taciturn Kevin Spacey this morning.

They're in Davos.

Dialling down messages

In these difficult times at the BBC, it's good to know that the Director of Internal Communications and Engagement is doing the thought-leader stuff. In November Heather Wagoner published an article based on her contribution to a PR Week debate. It's entitled "Communicating Change: The Challenges, The Opportunities".

Here's an extract.

Communicate Hope, Communicate Choice and Communicate Support.

When communicating change, we have the ability to dial up certain messages, and dial down others. We have the opportunity to activate positive emotions and ... we have the ability to help our employees imagine a post-change future.

And in the online dialogue that follows, some more helpful hints.

Change has changed ! It is constant. Personally, I use internal social media - in particular to communicate support. Creating robust, user-led, self-moderating communities is really key to communicating support through change and creating a sense of empowerment. It's a shame that there are still some orgs that aren't comfortable with internal social media. But remember, a channel is only a channel. It's what you do with it that matters.

Wonder if she's dialling down the delayed staff survey results.

Better

News at Tom on Wednesday pulled in a few more viewers, with 1.68m watching according to the overnight ratings. The figure excludes ITV HD, so there's more to come. The inheritance was provided by the National Television Awards, which averaged 5.5m over two and a half hours.

Huw's News, fronted by Clive Myrie, was watched by 4.09m - picking up new viewers after 3.86m tuned in for the FA Cup replay between Leicester and Spurs.

Shipping forecast

Anyone getting a feeling that there's an early rush to the life rafts, as the Good Ship BBC TV Production undergoes a rarely-attempted refit at sea to transform the ageing supertanker into a shiny cruise liner, BBC Studios, under Commodore Salmon and Chief Purser Mallett ?

Myfanwy Moore, UK Controller of Comedy Production for the past two years, went overboard yesterday, waving by-bye to a salary of £200k, and presumably without a deal. In her note to fellow-crew members, she wrote:

"It's a personal decision. This is a hearts and minds job. Quite rightly. But after overseeing the department, and leading the initial charge into Studios, it feels like it's time to oversee something a little closer to home. Like my home...... Please know you face a brilliant future in BBC Studios. I'm around for the next month. Big love. xM."

How's it going ?

A score or so of BBC executives and non-executives gathered in the wide-open spaces of The Mailbox in Birmingam for their four-hour November board meeting.

The minutes are, as now traditional, useless. They clearly discussed savage job cuts, the hasty exit from a number of sports deals, and heard a late plea from Radio against the flight to indies.

There was also a one-year-on review of the performance of BBC America, now in the sensitive hands of schedulers from joint-owners AMC Networks. Maybe they even flipped through the recent listings - still mixing Dr Who, Top Gear and Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares with Star Trek: Next Generation and old films like Psycho and Hook.  Viewing figures are down by 2% over the year.

Meanwhile, with all the secretariat on hand, it's odd to see the BBC's esteemed and valued Director, Scotland and Investigator General, Ken MacQuarrie noted as "Kenny".

"Legal, legal"

The Dame Janet Smith Review, running so long it's almost a brand now, better be sure of its ground when it says the final version of its findings will be very different to the leaked report in the hands of the hacks of Exaro - otherwise there'll be serious brand damage.

"That document is out of date and significant changes have been made to its contents and conclusions. The document should not have been made public and cannot be relied upon in any circumstances."

It is public, and the broad conclusion is that top BBC managers had no hard evidence of Jimmy Savile's vile activities - although they didn't try very hard looking. Worse, Dame J says it's even possible a predatory child abuser could be lurking in the modern BBC, with staff afraid to be whistleblowers.

The draft report shows an organisation apparently collectively looking the other way, from the Derek Chinnery/Doreen Davies interview of Savile in 1973 right through to the final Top of The Pops in 2006, co-presented by the DJ at the age of 79 - an opportunity to assault a girl aged 13 to 16.

0930 Update: Lord Hall says the BBC still hasn't got the final report.

The Messenger

And, as if to signal there are some unpleasant messages to come, the BBC has a vacancy (again) for a Head of Internal Communications and Engagement - Corporate, this time on a 12-month contract, at the emerging management grade, Band 11, and helpfully based in Birmingham, when most of the blood-letting will be in London.

The job purpose: Lead the design and delivery of effective Internal Communications and Engagement activities across the BBC - either business partnering divisions or corporately across the BBC. As part of the IC&E senior team, scoping and overseeing the delivery of campaigns, change programmes, employee engagement strategies, key announcements, employee communications and related events. Thereby helping the organisation to achieve its goals through enabling understanding and engagement.

Go on, go on, go on..

Herringbone

To cheer up depressed Beeboids, last night's News at Tom on ITV, on day two of its over-puffed latest relaunch, and with added Peston in Davos, attracted just 1.03m viewers in the overnight ratings. 6.3% of the available audience.

It did follow the third episode of ITV's latest factual stinker, Saved - "A dramatic and emotional factual format telling the extraordinary stories of people whose lives were saved by strangers". Tomorrow's News at Tom should do better, preceded by the National Television Awards, which sees BBC Breakfast, The One Show, Loose Women and This Morning locked in a titanic struggle for the title of Best Live Magazine Show - with Breakfast sadly touting for viewer votes this morning.

All barrels

I hope there was an early morning call to the cleaners at 180 Great Portland Street, asking for copies of the Daily Mail set aside for the BBC Trust to be quietly binned.

Mail posh-cheeky-boy Quentin Letts has laid into BBC Chairman Rona Fairhead and her aide-de-camp Alex Towers after their appearance before the Culture Select Committee yesterday. The full thing makes your eyes water. Rona "was a portrait of anguish, neuralgia made flesh". Alex: "a bespectacled mumbler, gulpy as a drainpipe, all hairless wrists and scraped back, underwashed hair". 

Quentin doesn't mention that in December the quasi-judicial wing of the Trust ruled that his tail-tweaking of the Met Office, in the Radio 4 series "What's The Point Of ...?" should be taken off the iPlayer, never mind never repeated.

Words

“This is going to make the identities of BBC1 and BBC2 clearer”, said Director General Lord Hall, according to The Guardian, as he put Charlotte Moore in control of both.

Imagine, then, the benefits of having a single person running, say, The Royal Opera House and The English National Opera. Or Manchester City and Chelsea. Or Greggs and Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons. Or Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom. It's the sort of business insight that has real legs.

Bedmaker

I suspect if the Great Ankle-Biter of Radio, Jenny Abramsky was still around at Broadcasting House today, she'd be keeping a low profile.

Jenny's competitive nature was often applied inside the BBC to make sure that radio management were rewarded in the same way as their television counterparts - with company cars, private healthcare insurance, and Senior Management-grades a-go-go.

That me-too-ism was fine when TV was on the up. Yesterday saw BBC2 lose a dedicated "Controller" for the first time in its 51 year history. Is it likely that the same fate will hit radio networks ?  Radio 4 (alongside the other numerically-named networks) was the creation of first Controller Gerard Mansell - it emerged from The Home Service in 1967, making it three years younger than BBC2, and thus probably not immune to a similar downgrade. There's been some clustering of digital stations in recent years, but could we see a new post of Controller, Radio Networks on the horizon, with 'editors' scheduling the individual networks ?

What seems to be happening at the moment is a gentle lifting of corners of the coverlet draped across the self-assembly IKEA Hemnes Divan that represents Lord Hall's McKinsey-inspired simplification of the BBC's management structure, replacing Mark Thompson's Hypnos Eminence King-sized Double Bed, with a hand-stitched mattress and topper covered with a wool-infused Belgian Damask and embroidered with the Royal Crest and the Hypnos name.

The coverlet will be fully lifted sometime before the end of the financial year, and there will be gasps, low moaning and the odd scream when it happens. People who should know believe there will finally be a single Director of Content, something this blog has been harping on about for five years. As a result, I predict that quality office space will become steadily available right through 2016 at Broadcasting House.

Endless

I wonder which Kim Shillinglaw went to the interview for the post of Controller TV Channels ? There are at least two. One is 'plain-speaking', eg "Ten o'clock is a place where BBC2 should show its knickers a bit" and, "I grew up abroad, in Cameroon and then Spain – partly due to my parents' work, and partly it was shaggy 70s parenting".

The other trumpets new commissions in an odd machine-like prose, as we've noted before here and here, and even as recently as last week: “Robot Wars is an absolute TV classic and I'm thrilled to be updating it for the next generation of viewers. With new technological advances making for an even more exciting and immersive experience, this is a fantastic example of the kind of content-rich factual entertainment that BBC Two excels at.”

Either that's Kim herself, or perhaps Andrew Francis of the BBC Television Press Office pushing the buttons of the speakak generator - with the Ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition Preventer toggle left unpressed (or off). (See what I did there ?).

There may have been a third Kim - a bit of a control-freak, perhaps monitoring the delivery of Top Gear Mark II a little too closely. The Guardian reports DG Lord Hall saying Kim had "done a great job", but tellingly adding "“Charlotte [Moore] is an an extraordinarily creative talent. I have complete confidence in her making sure we have something really sparky coming out of Top Gear.”

And there was certainly a Kim not made for these BBC times. In August 2014, three months into her role as Controller BBC2 and BBC4, she told The Guardian "Let's not spend more time than we have to on the internal workings. Let's not endlessly reorganise."

One down

The BBC's latest dramatic "strategic re-organisation" sees the Television Board reduced from 25 to 24. Controller BBC2 and BBC4, Kim Shillinglaw has decided to leave the organisation, after an internal board selected Charlotte Moore to be the new Controller, TV Channels and iPlayer. Adam Barker becomes Acting Editor, BBC2. It looks as though BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4 will all have an Editor. Damian Kavanagh still seems to have the title Digital Controller BBC3.

A more radical restructure would have merged Charlotte's new role with that of Acting Director of Television Mark Linsey. There may still be time, but many will think the candidacy of Mark has been strengthened by this change.

There'll be increased twitchiness on other floors of Broadcasting House. BBC Radio still boasts Controllers for Radio 4, Radio 2 and 6Music, Radio 1 and 1Xtra, Radio 5Live and 5Live Sports Extra and Radio 3.

Local interest

The RPI for December was 1.2% - the highest for 11 months. That means those on BBC Pensions under 'Old Benefits' terms will get an extra 1.2% in April.

Some may opt for more, if they's been offered a slice of PIE, the Pension Increase Exchange scheme, by BBC Director of Finance Ian Haythornthwaite. It's a deal where you, the pensioner, take jam today, in a gamble against the thinner bread of life expectancy and future inflation.

In the most recent staff pay rise, in August 2015, there was an all-round increase of 2.5%.

In the City

Twitter is down at time of writing, so it'll be interesting to see how the world fares without an echo-chamber.

I noticed because I was seeking the Tweeted thoughts of Culture Secretary John Whittingdale's newspaper guru, Ashley Highfield. Johnston Press, of which he is CEO, has just announced it's considering asset sales, which has boosted the share price slightly from yesterday's record low of 35p. The company's trading update has said that full year earnings are on track as forecast, despite total revenues being down 7%.

Johnston Press' share price has fallen 75% since I set up my imaginary Whittingdale ISA in May last year. Overall the portfolio - including Sky, BT, ITV and Trinity Mirror - is down 17.5% this morning, almost exactly in line with the FTSE 100 over the same period.

Roadrunners

FoI Factoid - the mileage clocked up in the chauffeur-driven VW Phaeton allocated to the BBC Director General show little difference in the distances covered by Mark Thompson (home base Oxford) and Lord Hall (Henley-on-Thames).

In Mark's last full year, 2011/12, it recorded 24,300 miles. There was a slight dip in 2012/3, including the Entwistle interregnum, at 22,600, and Lord Hall's first full year saw even less wear and tear, at 21,700. Now he's out and about like a good 'un, covering 24,200 miles last year.

Average UK mileage for car owners stood at some 7,200 in 2014.

White stuff

BBC News hacks will be delighted to know that Director and Presenter James Harding will be taking thinking time on job cuts this week whilst contemplating the pistes of Davos.

He'll have the small distraction of a major interview to conduct in front of the delegates. China ? The World Economy ? Refugees ? No, a session quizzing Kevin Spacey.

Presumably trained BBC interviewers also in Davos, such as Lyse Doucet, Tanya Beckett and Nik Gowing, aren't glitzy enough for the gig. Still, James can also catch up with old school-chum George Osborne, and his broadcasting "Mrs", Zanny Minton-Beddoes, And rub shoulders with thought-leaders like Leonardo DiCaprio, Bono and Gordon Brown. Maybe they've got ideas on newsroom shift patterns.

Weather wins it

Fincham's ITV legacy may include Beowulf. Last night's third episode was watched by 1.96m according to overnight figures - an 8.7% share. That's down from 2.6m (11%) for the opener.

Whilst Call the Midwife recorded the highest average audience in Sunday's overnights, at 7.97m, the peak goes to the weather forecast embedded in Countryfile, at 7.15pm - 8.15m.

TV production lines

It'll be twelve months of change in the top jobs of British tv when Peter Fincham exits ITV in March. 

Peter, 59 (Tonbridge and Churchill Cambridge) hasn't indicated his next move, but his chum Tim Hincks, 48 (The Weald School and Bristol University) is also leaving that month, from his role as President of the Endemol Shine Group. (Peter and Tim play with Google's Peter Barron in the band 'No Expectations'.)

Danny Cohen, just past his 42nd birthday, (City of London and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford) has been on the jobs market since announcing his departure from the BBC in October. Stuart Murphy, 44 (St Mary's Menston and Clare College, Cambridge) stood down from his role as Director of Entertainment Channels at Sky around the same time.

At least one job has been saved for the boys: Kevin Lygo, 58, (Cranbrook and Durham) has already been announced as Fincham's successor. And Julian Bellamy, 44 (Ashlynn's, Sussex and Cambridge) steps up into the Lygo vacancy. 

Quite a gene pool, huh ?

Turning point

While others dilly and dally with workstreams, think-tanks, playpens and romper rooms, Tradingaswdr is proud to present, after hours of intensive work this weekend, an online channel. It's subscription-free, internationally available on all smart-phones and in all online homes, and represents a bold move for this ambitious, forward-thinking organisation, seen by many as one certain to push the envelope to its limits in 2016.

Any suggestion that's just a link to some old YouTube videos is totally refuted.

 

Try again

The BBC Executive got sent back to do more work by the BBC Trust, at a monster two-day meeting at Pacific Quay back in November. The minutes show that, as well as finally approving the move of BBC3 to 'online only', the Trust were offered proposals on management pay and rebalancing UK-wide and "nations" production. My interpretation - homework not quite good enough. My italics.


140.3 Members discussed with the Executive the challenges of ensuring value for money whilst attracting high calibre staff in a competitive commercial environment, and of setting a new strategy at a time of significant organisational change. The Trust noted that any new strategy would need to set tangible targets whilst allowing flexibility, and that transparency would need to be maintained through disclosure whilst protecting commercially confidential information.

140.4 The Director-General agreed that the Executive Board would discuss the strategy again before any further discussion with the Trust.


141.4 The Director-General said that work on improving the BBC’s offering to all audiences, including those in the nations, should not conflict with the objective of creating a simpler organisation. The Trust agreed that quotas could add unnecessary complication, but noted it was important that the BBC should be transparent and accountable for its performance in the nations.

141.5 The Trust asked the Executive to return to it once it had developed the proposals for future work in the devolved nations outlined in its British, Bold, Creative Charter Review document; these included reviewing the balance of UK-wide and Nations news bulletins, and improving portrayal and representation

Lozenges prescribed

Let's take the temperature and pulse of The Voice as it glissandos to an end on the BBC. This week's edition attracted 6.37m in the overnight ratings; that compares with 7.12m last week, and 8.46m on the same weekend last year.

Last year the run-up show was magic compilation Now You See It, scoring 4.75m. This year, The Getaway Car appealed to 4.14m.

A little knowledge

Someone needs to put Fiona Hyslop right. The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs indulges in a point-scoring Sunday Herald piece about getting the BBC to spend more of the £323m million it collects from Scottish licence-payers, in Scotland.

"Prior to last week’s committee, some media suggested we had underestimated the BBC’s spend on new TV content produced in Scotland for Scottish viewers – so I was pleased that the BBC’s Managing Director for Finance and Operations, Anne Bulford, took the opportunity to set the record straight on Tuesday, confirming that there was only a £35 million cash spend on “above the line” original TV content for Scotland."

It might prove hard to spend £35m on tv programme-making in Scotland for Scotland without the investment in BBC buildings, broadcast studios, broadcast facilities and support services in Pacific Quay, Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Orkney, Portree, Selkirk, Shetland and Stornoway, And the odd transmitter. And material from BBC digital libraries. And central programme compliance services. But then Fiona knows how broadcasting works....

Comeback kiddie

Good news for those missing Al from the rich panoply of UK celebrity photograpy: the Guardian is pretty convinced that Mr Yentob will be a guest at the Murdoch-Hall nuptials, which it expects will take place in London before March.

Back in November, the Standard spotted Al as a guest in Rupert and Jerry's box at the O2 for a U2 concert (see, got that the right way round). He was apparently Rebekah Brooks' plus one.

Original British Drama with Ads

When BBC3 goes online only, the regular window for a same-day late-night Eastenders repeat closes. But fret not, fans of made-up misery and nastiness, another window will open on a new channel from UKTV, a revamped version of Watch, to be called 'W'.

It will launch on Monday 15 February. BBC3 will stop broadcasting some time in March, with the formal start of the online-only-offering coming on 1st March.

Eastenders on BBC3 has been regularly getting figures over 600k in the overnights. Will viewers follow it to W with ads, or catch-up ad-free online ? Does it matter that the BBC is ready to make money this way ? Is it a dangerous precedent ? Etc, etc.

TV trouble

BBC personal files are occasionally discoverable, it seems - even when the person involved is/was a freelance.

Deep-voiced Tommy Vance, who died in 2005, had at least three mild brushes with BBC managers, in documents released in response to a Freedom of Information enquiry, which Auntie apparently doesn't mind sharing - and didn't take too long to find. The first was a row over car-parking at Television Centre in 1970, when Tommy was due in for Disco 2, a poorly-named predecessor of The Old Grey Whistle Test - and most of the spaces were reserved for staff working on Cup Final coverage and Apollo 13. The incident left one commissionaire 'in a collapsed state'.

The second, from 1991, is a note from an unnamed boss, following a story about DJs selling review copies of albums in The Sun; and the third, from 1988, notes that Tommy is taking 'talents of silver' for voice-overs on tv ads for records - and 'should avoid over-supporting them' on air.

Zooming off

It was in January 2012 that Danny Cohen announced that Ana De Moraes had been hired to stoke BBC TV's creative fires, as head of a new unit called Development Central. Two years later, she is heading back to indie-land.

Broadcast can only point to two productions over that period - a pilot called In Case You Missed It and a forthcoming series with punters training to be Roman Gladiators. Since October, Ana's Twitter feed has been largely concerned with plugging her children's book, The Zoomers Handbook - with retweets from tv contacts.

Remember Ana who found me for TV? She's written a lovely children's book: Brilliant debut The #ZoomersHandbook... http://t.co/i35nncWViR

— Gareth Malone OBE (@GarethMalone) October 1, 2015

Q & A

Belated congratulations of Anna Mallett, now anointed COO of BBC Studios. Peter Salmon is pleased. "It is great to welcome Anna on board. She is a brilliant collaborator, a clear thinker and great manager with previous successful experience of running commercial companies. Her acute business sense, and understanding of the industry will play a key part in creating a BBC Studios that is vibrant and creative.”

Anna joined the BBC in 2006 on around £120k; she's now on £240k. Will her salary as COO Studios be disclosed before it goes out of the reach of FoI enquiries ?  Is her "experience of running commercial companies" largely gained through the loss-making BBC Studios and Post Production ?   Were there any other candidates ?  Has she found a way to give the new BBC Studios any start-up capital ? Any more questions ?

Jam finished

The Al Jazeera America adventure is over, heading to a phased shut-down by April. It took over the cable slot occupied by Al Gore's failing Current TV project in 2013, at a price said to be $500m, but has failed to build a worthwhile audience - averaging 19,000 viewers over a day in 2015 according to Nielsen, with evening peaks around 30k. It was available in 60 million homes; roughly 100 million homes have cable.

The channel ran into turmoil and sackings in May last year.

BBC World News is available by cable and satellite in 115.5m US homes, but has yet to share viewing figures.

Lofty

BBC HR types struggling with change, cuts, relocation, staff, unions and life may like to consider an afternoon 'packed with inspiration and though-provoking content' led by one of the personnel world's newest thinkers, Lucy Adams.

For just £695 (including VAT) you too can participate in "Disruptive HR - The Complete Works", which is "held at Lumiere, an elegant and eclectic Victorian loft space in central London....and includes lunch, drinks to end the day, plus the latest tablet loaded with a wealth of research and resources. As a follow up, you will also receive a FREE one hour consultation session, giving you one to one support and advice for the unique needs of your business."

Deep

Rant warning. If you are to extend your bulletin "to explain the events that impact the country", let's do that. Let's not have info-lite, Janet-and-John numpty explainers. Most of the UK's population have worked at some stage of their lives; most will have had experience of a payslip and a rota. Let's see a few typical junior doctors' weekly or monthly schedules and pay returns, and compare them with Hunt's proposals.

Last night, Mark Easton, dressed in one of Captain Peacock's old suits, slid between virtual hospital beds, and told us there are 55,000 junior hospital doctors in England, paid basic salaries from £23k to £70k. He quoted the Government view of the offer  - an 11% increase in basic, a 25% cut in the rate for 'anti-social hours', and the scrapping of time-based increments - that three-quarters will be better off, and 1% will be worse off. Mark said the BMA disputes these figures, but gave no further detail, before a jaunt through the history of the NHS.

Jeremy Hunt says that there's agreement with the BMA on 15 out of 16 points. The BMA says that's wrong.

BBC hacks normally are rota-savvy, and know about the issues of performance-related pay. Let's do some work and find out how close the two sides are, if at all.

Trinkets and beads

Some odds and ends from Lord Hall's opening offer to pacify the Education and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament...

He talked about sustaining (not, you note, increasing) production in Scotland; he promised a review of news coverage in Scotland, including the idea of a Scottish Six, reporting 'in spring'; he said as well as a Scottish homepage for online news, there would be new Scottish front-ends for the iPlayer, for BBC Sport, and the main BBC landing page. He promised new and interesting coverage of the Edinburgh Festival. And said he believed a future re-vamped BBC unitary board would have someone representing Scotland.

The next day

The rather shaky BBC1 tribute to David Bowie, Sound and Vision, got a very respectable 4.5m viewers according to the overnight ratings. The new Tracey Ullman Show, at 10.45, was watched by 2.9m - a 23% share, which can't have helped Newsnight start the week.

The BBC1 Ten O'Clock News spent its first 17 minutes on Bowie. ITV's News at Ten allowed Robert Peston two and a half minutes to ruminate on Europe and the UK. The BBC bulletin was watched by 4.8m, the ITV bulletin by 1.5m.

Book-ing

Master of the ruminative, excogitative question James Naughtie gets a shot at tv in 2016, taking over the News Channel's Meet The Author slot (with occasional appearances from Arts Correspondent Rebecca Jones) from Nick Higham.

One suspects that Jim will need a little more production support than Nick was afforded. He told the Bookseller that he was stepping down just before Christmas “It was a personal decision. I am one of the BBC’s home news correspondents and ['Meet the Author'] is quite a substantial commitment in time. Effectively I act as my own producer, I fix all the interviews, I read all the books, I book the studios, I am involved in editing the pieces and so on. And we do specials: we do things around interviews with shortlisted authors at some of the awards. We interview all the contenders for the Costa Book Award. And put all those out in one week... So there’s a lot of work and it takes quite a lot of time."

Hands off

After Squeeze's message to Cameron on The Andrew Marr Show, another from producer Sir Colin Callender, accepting a Golden Globe for Wolf Hall in Los Angeles.

David Bowie

Perhaps the oddest story of Bowie's last days comes from the Suffolk Gazette - saying he was staying in Suffolk over the New Year, and popped into the Taj Maharaja in Bungay for a curry. Apparently without much prompting, he sang The Jean Genie for the benefit of other customers, and signed autographs on paper napkins.

Three days before his death, he released the album, Blackstar. There's a disturbing video to accompany the song Lazarus, directed by Breaking Bad's John Renck. He knew what was going on. American chat show host Jimmy Fallon thinks he's spotted a little humour in the video - claiming there's an acknowledgement of his weekly "Thank You" notes feature.

Under water

The BBC has handed its homework in, ahead of Tuesday's session in front of the Education and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament. It doesn't accept the claim from Scottish indie Matchlight, that network production in Scotland is largely 'lift and shift', simply invoiced from sub-offices of London-based production companies.

The BBC's written submission points out that Ofcom has rules on what counts as Scottish-produced content, and says that, of £82.3m spent on network tv, radio and online output in Scotland, £78.1m is "verified" as proper pure dead brilliant by the watchdog. £108.2m is spent on programming specifically for Scotland, and the BBC says, that when you add a share of central support costs and distribution, annual spend north of the border totals well over £200m.

However, fans of hypothecation will note that the BBC receives £323m in licence-fees from Scottish addresses, and there's not much in the BBC's submission that hints at closing that gap. That doesn't mean Lord Hall won't come along with a few goodies. Perhaps a return for Hans and Lotte Hass or Jacques Cousteau-style shows, made around the coast of Scotland. After all, committee convenor and former fireman Stewart Maxwell MSP is a keen Scuba diver, and fan of the Sea Fan....


 

Longueurs

The BBC's Ten O'Clock Bulletin gets 45 minutes (including regional news and weather) from Monday. The Mirror reasonably suggests that both David Dimbleby of Question Time and Andrew 'Make Me A Scoop' Neil of This Week are anxious about what a later start will do to their audience figures. But, of course, there's no such slight to an important broadcaster like Graham Norton; on Fridays, the extra time apparently vital "to explain the events that impact the country and help to make sense of the changing world around us" is not required, and his show sails on at 1035.

At ITV Towers, they're at least keeping News At Tom at Ten for the whole week.

In other news, the warm openness of the BBC this weekend extended to letting Sheila Fogarty, now of LBC, win her round of Celebrity Mastermind (specialist subject Pope John Paul II). Brother Liam, former BBC Correspondent, was a winner on Mastermind Ordinaire in 1981 (the works of Gustave Courbet).

And Radio 5Live welcomes GMB host Piers Morgan to share presentation of their football phone-in tonight. Will the webcam indicate where he is, and show Ian Wright gazing adoringly at his hero ?

Staying with commercial broadcasters, Robert Peston's ITV Sunday show will not now launch until 'Spring'.

Inference

The BBC's Editor of Live Political Programmes, Robbie Gibb says there was nowt wrong with the way the Daily Politics managed the revelation of Labour shadow minister Stephen Doughty's resignation  - though he acknowledges that the story of how it was done should have been kept within the BBC.

In a letter to the Labour Party's spinmeister Seumas Milne, he writes "The BBC's training department, the BBC Academy, contacted me asking for an article explaining what goes on behind the scenes when a politician resigns live on air. I had assumed (wrongly) that the article was for internal purposes only. When it became apparent that it had been published more widely, we decided to delete it as the piece was written in a tone that was only suitable for an internal audience. No other inference should be drawn from our decision to delete the blog".

Would that be a tone of vainglorious back-slapping at how deuced clever Gibb, Neil and his team are ?

• Michael Rosen has started an interesting discussion on his blog about the mechanics of the scoop. 

Gently does it

It's a funny old global BBC at the moment.

In Deember 2010, BBC Four broadcast a pilot tv version of Dirk Gently, based on characters created by Douglas Adams, starring Stephen Mangan. It attracted around a million viewers - not earth-shattering, but four times the channel average for the slot. So three more episodes were commissioned, and all four got a run out in 2012.

However, in May 2012, the BBC said there would be no more, as a result of the licence fee deal and Delivering Quality First cuts: “We’ve loved having Dirk on the channel but the licence fee freeze means less British drama on BBC Four. In future we will focus on the best dramas from around the globe, like The Killing and Borgen".

Today, BBC America, 50% owned by the BBC, announced that it has commissioned an eight episode take on Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in which our hero, as yet uncast, heads to the USA.

BBC America president Sarah Barnett tells Variety: "Dirk Gently is a very original series, fresh and unlike anything else. The novels have legions of fans, and with Max Landis’ brilliant and audacious take on this material we are excited to bring Dirk to life for our BBCA super-fans”

There's no sign of BBC proper-production funds in this; perhaps we can bring it back as a cheap import. But then it would be American, and that's bad, isn't it ?

Trial by jury ?

Alan "Armslengthal" Davey could be up to his elbows in an employment tribunal, if the Times' Richard Morrison is right. The new, genial, folky Controller of Radio 3 is said to have terminated the contract of Stephen Jackson, director of the BBC Symphony Chorus, because of clashes with Paul Hughes, genial blogger and general manager of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

According to Mr Morrison, Mr Davey felt this was okay without the normal procedures afforded to staff in an exit, because the BBC deems Mr Jackson a freelancer. This despite 26 years of service in the role - hours of lawyerly fun to be had. And amusingly, Mr Morrison believes one of the clashes was over Paul Hughes wanting to spend more money on extra singers for a performance, and Mr Jackson arguing the works were well within the range of his talented amateurs.

We have the makings of an instant opera...

One Direction

A familiar tool of 'employee engagement' beloved of HR over the past twenty years has been the creation of a programme of 'choices', where the staff apparently can influence the direction of their business - whilst, in reality, the routemap is being forced on them with the ease of a kids party magician.

So James Harding, Director of BBC News, has today turned to his 7,355 employees, seeking 'answers' on four fronts, in a quest to make savings.

"First, output. Where do we think people are going to watch, listen to, and get their news, and what do we want to do about it? 

Second, content. What can we do to tell the story better? 

Third, how do we ensure BBC News serves all audiences in the UK, regardless of age, identity, income, gender or geography? Young people are consuming less and less traditional media – how do we cater for them? 

And fourth, the way we work. How do we invest in people, reduce costs, increase opportunity and improve the working culture? 

Today, we have questions, not decisions. This is not an announcement of job cuts. It’s not even a statement on a savings target. It’s about setting our priorities."

James has been in the job some 28 months.

Deleted !

If BBC politics producer Andrew Alexander's deleted blog post is right, there was a very wide range of people who should have known better involved in the process that delivered the resignation of a Shadow Minister 'live' on the Daily Politics. All, I think, living in the Westminster bubble that thinks this sort of stuff is 'clever', and mentally fuelled by a top editorial team that judges performance by 'exclusives' rather than intelligent, thoughtful coverage with insight and perspective.  Perhaps more worrying is that someone in the BBC's standard-setting 'College of Journalism' thought that an inside story of iffy news management was something to be sought and celebrated, with the headline "Resignation ! Making the news on the Daily Politics".

Here's the full text of the deleted post.

Wednesday is always an important day for the Daily Politics because we carry Prime Minister's Questions live, which brings with it our biggest audience of the week and, we hope, a decent story. 

As I arrived at Millbank at 7am it was clear that Jeremy Corbyn's cabinet reshuffle, which had ended before 1am, was going to dominate at Westminster. When the programme editor phoned in we agreed that in addition to covering other major stories, including the junior doctors' strike, fallout from the reshuffle was likely to continue throughout the morning and this was a story where we could make an impact. 

When the producers arrived at 8am they began putting out texts and calls to Labour MPs we thought were likely to react strongly to the sacking of several shadow ministers for "disloyalty". Just before 9am we learned from Laura Kuenssberg, who comes on the programme every Wednesday ahead of PMQs, that she was speaking to one junior shadow minister who was considering resigning. I wonder, mused our presenter Andrew Neil, if they would consider doing it live on the show? 

The question was put to Laura, who thought it was a great idea. Considering it a long shot we carried on the usual work of building the show, and continued speaking to Labour MPs who were confirming reports of a string of shadow ministers considering their positions. 

Within the hour we heard that Laura had sealed the deal: the shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty would resign live in the studio. 

Although he himself would probably acknowledge he isn't a household name, we knew his resignation just before PMQs would be a dramatic moment with big political impact. We took the presenters aside to brief them on the interview while our colleagues on the news desk arranged for a camera crew to film him and Laura arriving in the studio for the TV news packages. 

There's always a bit of nervous energy in the studio and the gallery just before we go on air at 11.30am, but I'd say it was a notch higher than usual this week. By this point we weren’t worried about someone else getting the story as we had Stephen Doughty safely in our green room. Our only fear was that he might pull his punches when the moment came. 

When it did, with about five minutes to go before PMQs, he was precise, measured and quietly devastating – telling Andrew that “I’ve just written to Jeremy Corbyn to resign from the front bench” and accusing Mr Corbyn’s team of “unpleasant operations” and telling “lies”. 

As Andrew Neil handed from the studio to the Commons chamber we took a moment to watch the story ripple out across news outlets and social media. Within minutes we heard David Cameron refer to the resignation during his exchanges with Jeremy Corbyn. 

During our regular debrief after coming off air at 1pm we agreed our job is always most enjoyable when a big story is breaking - but even more so when it’s breaking on the programme.

Bleak House

Hard Times for Dickensian. Tony Jordan's soapy confection of fictional 19th century characters has reached its sixth episode, and, according to overnight figures, 2.66m watched - an 11.6% share. The series started with Great Expectations, with 4.99m (24.9%) watching the first episode, and 4.3m (20.9%) the second shown on the same night.

Perhaps it's an Uncommercial Traveller.

Dense

Here's a rather terrifying aerial visualisation of the Television Centre redevelopment, from above the doughnut, looking across Wood Lane and the tube lines. If everything across the road gets built, it's creating quite a canyon.

Hours of work

It would, apparently, take more than two and a half days to work out how many senior managers were employed in BBC News in October and what they were working on. Not, perhaps, a wise way of keeping things secret...

Freedom of Information Enquiry: ‘How many Senior Managers did News Division employ on 1 October 2015? 

How many of these individuals
 - were in their substantive and continuing named posts on that date?
 - were working on special projects other than their continuing substantive job?’

BBC Response: We estimate that to deal with your request would take more than two and a half days; under section 12 of the Act, we are allowed to refuse to handle the request if it would exceed the appropriate limit.

Eat me

New baseline just in, from a Freedom of Information response. 

As at 31 October 2015, 7,355 staff were employed within the BBC News division (including Global News & World Service and English Regions), up from 7314 in March 2015. That compares with 6,302 in December 2010 - the division now clearly reeling from the impact of cuts under the Delivering Quality First programme, which started in 2011.

The enquirer also asked about words in job titles. Apparently, contrary to a previous post, there's no-one with Strategy or Strategic in their official handle. There are 10 people with Change in their titles.

Save on printing

Former BBC HR Director Lucy Adams' collected works will probably be called "Late Dawning Realisations", with at least one chapter entitled "Why Didn't I Think Of That At The Time ?", and another "Leaving ? How Much Money Can You Carry ?".

In the first chapter she'll group Appraisals, Performance Rankings, Group E-Mails with a new one just coming blinking into the Adams Spotlight of Dumping Useless Activities, "Ditch Your Employee Handbook".  She has also become an admirer of Netflix's five word policy on expenses - Act In Netflix's Best Interests. The current BBC policy statement, under 'renegotiation', runs to 25 pages. I can't see Valerie Hughes D'Aeth making it much shorter, if at all.

(If Lucy reads further in the Netflix story, she'll find another great HR strategy. Hire, Reward and Tolerate Only Fully Formed Adults.)

Hoot

As Lord Hall prepares for next week's interrogation by the Scottish Parliament's Education and Culture Committee, what joy for the BBC to be able to announce 'bonanza' coverage of the upcoming Celtic Connections folk and world music festival in Glasgow.

Mark Radcliffe's Radio 2 coverage is up from two live shows last year to two live shows and one with recorded highlights. Radio 3 has three world music programmes and one concert recording - up from two visits last time. BBC Two Scotland has two highlight shows, unchanged from two last year.

Yesterday the Committee sharpened its Charter Renewal teeth on three Professors and one BBC Trustee, Bill Matthews. One angry prof wanted Edinburgh Festival coverage brought up to the level of Glastonbury.

Managing decline

Since I carried some of Private Eye's recent thoughts about Newsnight, I'd better lift from the 'rebuttal' letter from the editor Ian Katz in the current edition...

'After half a decade of precipitous decline, Newsnight's audience has been broadly stable for the past two years (2 per cent down over the last year), with the show recording its biggest audiences since 2011 during the Paris attacks. Your suggestion that the show overspent by £1m falls into the technical category of "cobblers"'.

No ideas ?

When BBC presenter and executive James Harding went looking for the Future of News during 2014, he acquired Air Miles, offered (this month last year) some opaque rodomontade, and failed to spot the short answer. The Future of News is smaller, at least in cash terms.

Media hack Neil Midgley has learned that News employees will be invited to envision that smallness in meetings on Friday. Friendly-faced war veteran Adrian Van Klaveren will apparently stroke money-saving suggestions from supine staff by a combination of tickling their tummies and looking sad.

In November, James emailed staff to say that an exercise to compare costs with other news organisations was underway. Many will look forward to the results of that. One might ask if any had a Head of Strategic Change on a package of £193k a year ?

It will also be interesting to see who steps forward to take part in volunteering savings across the Harding Empire. Lord Hall has almost ringfenced spending in Scotland and Wales in comments ahead of Charter Renewal, and James Purnell has engaged with politicians in both nations about enhanced news coverage. Local Radio looks pretty safe, once again saved by global warming. Regional TV is in the pink. The cold winds will largely be blowing in Broadcasting House.

Parking

Excitement for Lord Hall at both ends of his commute this week. At home in Henley, neighbours The Kenton Theatre, ten doors down, are seeking two designated parking places for the fourth oldest working theatre in the country - and chairman Ed Simons says the Good Lord is on side, as are most residents. Ed, who as part of Brent Walker, brought you The Bitch and The Stud, is now a part of That's TV, the format bringing hundreds Jeremy Hunt's ineffable media legacy, 'local tv', in the form of That's Oxford, That's Solent and That's Manchester, with more to come.

He told a town council meeting  “Georgie Fame came and he unloaded the van himself. He parked some 100 or 150 yards away from the theatre and he physically carried his cases to the theatre.

“He is an icon and when I greeted him at the theatre, as I had to help him carry his cases, he was laughing that there was nowhere for his van to be unloaded.

 “We have trucks that go in and out at all times of the day and night. I know a number of residents who would be delighted to have the spaces designated outside the theatre so that they are not disturbed at 1am by Joe Brown clearing up and the panto going in.”

 “It is not right that when a letter goes out to Sir John Major or Princess Michael of Kent we have to say ‘please park at Waitrose and walk down’. It is not right that people in that position cannot be afforded a space to be dropped off.”

Great minds

The very definition of futility: a shadow cabinet "reshuffle" of people doing imaginary jobs in a future government that will never exist.

— Robert Harris (@Robert___Harris) January 4, 2016

Call me cynical but..Labour's reshuffle...a futile exercise in creating imaginary jobs in a government that will never exist.

— Neville Thurlbeck (@nthurlbeck) January 5, 2016

Is Dan the Man ?

Dan Walker (Hazelwick Comprehensive and Sheffield) is in the middle of his living audition to follow Bill Turnbull as the lead male presenter of BBC Breakfast. Three shifts finish tomorrow - and the ladies - Lou, Sal, Steph and Carol - are falling all over him, in vital discussions about licking the toppings off biscuits. Perhaps that's why William Hill suspended betting on him late last year.

I'm no fashion expert. Can anyone spot any clothing endorsed by Dan on his website ? Barrington Ayre, shirtmaker and tailor, Pantherella socks, Oliver Sweeney shoes ? No sign - yet - of Taylor Made golf clubs or Galvin Green golf shirts...

Very strong

Congratulations to Niki Carr (Kesteven and Sleaford High, Leeds University), Marketing Manager for BBC3 - and for Comedy.

She's managed to double bluff us all with the new logo for BBC3, which is clearly the Mayan hieroglyph for 12, and, along the way, acquired more free publicity than anyone could reasonably expect. Even John Morton, writer of BBC docu-drama W1A, commented "You couldn't make it up - but clearly, we did".

Working mum Niki joined the BBC as Brand Manager for News & Current Affairs (who knew they had one ?) in 2004, the heady days of Helen Boaden's reign. Since then, in a contracting Auntie, her jobs have all come in pairs - BBC2 and Factual, Digital and iPlayer, and Radio 1 and 1Xtra. She joined BBC3 three months after the Executive announced that they wanted to move the channel online in March 2014.

Niki clearly got the comedy team to help with her script for the logo announcement - "This visual identity will underpin what we do in the future. What is most striking is the new logo and the fact it doesn’t actually say three."  One of the team also gave up areas of hair for the project (unless the Mail finds out they paid an actor).



Can we be sure that Niki is pulling our legs ? On Linkedin, she has an endorsement from Ben Clapp, Executive Creative Director of GreyPOSSIBLE: "On the ball when it comes to commissioning work; strategically smart, bold and contemporary in execution and keen to pioneer new formats and ideas. Niki gets more progressive ideas and much better value out of agencies by creating an atmosphere of trust and treating them as partners"

GreyPOSSIBLE say "We work in the space where two of the strongest communication pedigrees meet. Blending the powerful, culture-defining ideas of the Grey network with POSSIBLE's deep, digital expertise. 

"Digital is at its most successful when it’s integrated into the heart of a client’s business. And this works best when it happens upstream, with the best strategic and creative firepower in the industry."

Ronalde

A belated happy 65th birthday to composer and conductor Ron Corp, patient and benign leader of choirs across all ages, and re-discoverer of light music with his New London Orchestra.

Perhaps, with an earlier application of satin frock coats and hair curlers, he could have been the UK's answer to Andre Rieu, even before the question was asked. It may not be too late.

Guessing

Independent Editor Amol Rajan is sometimes well-informed. Sometimes. Here's one of his 2016 predictions from the Politico website.

An unexpectedly comprehensive shake-up of the BBC will be announced in January. The BBC Trust will be discarded as ‘not fit for purpose’. Tony Hall, the current director-general, could move sideways to be chair of the new governing body. James Harding, current director of news and current affairs, will replace Hall as director-general, and the new structure will be sold to Westminster and the public as more corporate than before, with a classic chairman and chief executive arrangement.

Impossible ?

A new schedule for the hardest working woman in radio from today. Vanessa Feltz continues with her weekday Radio 2 early show, running from 0500 to 0630, then moves to the studios of Radio London.

What's left of half an hour is presumably spent carefully honing scripts, digesting briefs, getting across tricky pronunciations, adding the trademark Feltz magic, before three hours of live broadcasting starting at 0700. Barely time for a snack ?  Vanessa fessed up the big issue to her loyal readers in the Daily Express just before the New Year...

On January 4 I begin a new incarnation as breakfast presenter on BBC Radio London.

It will involve finishing my Radio 2 Early Breakfast Show at 6.30am, charging down from the building’s sixth floor, sprinting through security, dashing across a road and a piazza, going through security, rushing up to the second floor of an entirely different building and bursting live on air with the brand new show at 7am. 

If I worry too much about the mechanics – when to visit the ladies, for example – I’ll curdle with anxiety. So I’m telling myself to breathe deeply, have faith in my two fabulous production teams and believe that 26 years of radio experience will make the impossible happen.