Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Carrie's war

A toe-curling, unravelling sort of afternoon for the unnamed BBC senior manager who 'heard' Carrie Gracie's grievance on equal pay - and no points, either, to whoever constructed the deal that so clearly underestimated Carrie's determination.

She's a formidable presenter, too.

Culpa

Some welcome flashes of frankness in this Newsnight interview with BBC Director of News Fran Unsworth.


Bigger bites

Here's a little more light on the BBC's big education idea for 2018, designed to meet 'societal deficits', from a new job ad....

"We are looking for an Executive Product Manager to lead on Bitesize Plus which is an essential pillar of the BBC’s new education strategy. Working to the Head to the Product, and working closely with the BBC Learning department, you will help drive and deliver Bitesize Plus.

"In a world where global competition is increasingly tough, it is vital that people are empowered and supported to reach their potential. Building on the relationship we have with audiences through BBC Bitesize, you will help define and deliver our product strategy that will support the audience beyond their academic studies helping them navigate through the other challenges they will face throughout their school lives and as they transition into adulthood."

How did we get here ?

Those BBC staff still aggrieved with the way they're paid will take mild delight this morning in the discomfiture of Capita, outsourcing operators of most BBC HR activities from 2006 to 2016. They might also want to consider the operation of the outsourced BBC Manager Advice and Guidance Service, set up in 2016 in the Birmingham Centre of Excellence previously known as empty offices in The Mailbox. It's your boss's first port of call if, say, confronted with a claim for equal pay.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Reported

The PwC report on BBC presenter pay is peppered with medians, midpoints, quartiles and categorisations; over 43 pages it tries to say the gender pay gap is not that bad, and that there's no evidence of gender pay bias.

In most cases, the accountants say they've been presented by BBC management with lots of good reasons why men have been paid more than women. In the other cases, if there was no gender bias, one must assume that management thought they could get away with it and didn't care.

Apparently the BBC now favours transparent pay grades...which it used to have, until it started paying News presenters £500k and more on Band 10 and 11. Job-sizing is the next fun activity.

Women on top

In the PR battle over equal pay at the BBC, BBC Women coming bouncing back this morning with the publication of their evidence to the DCMS Select Committee, with 14 case studies and six pages of argument.  The NUJ written evidence is also in; but there's nowt, as yet, from the BBC.

The BBC "big, bold pay modernisation" looks, until we get more detail, like a simple cap, at £320k on pay for news presenters, at least in their principal employment.

The 14 cases, across news, sport and regional news, look convincing. They create a picture of managers unwilling to budge when confronted.

Each BBC manager gets a monthly update from finance of the pay of people on their departmental code (usually to check they're not still paying someone who's left.) Each BBC manager sits down annually with HR to discuss salary adjustments in the August pay round, distributing the meagre 1% set aside for additional reward. Local HR and local BBC managers know when things are unequal - but are left on their on to find cute ways of sorting issues. You can't build your own fund to deal with unequal pay - budget savings go back to the centre, and can't be carried forward. The only way to produce money is to leave posts empty, run with freelances, and hope your output doesn't suffer. Or to look for long grass.

Since 2015, News HR has been run by Dale Haddon, who came from the Post Office, and commissioned research to show that BBC hacks were overpaid eighteen months ago. Under James Harding, presenter pay has been the domain of his former Times sidekick, Keith Blackmore.


Monday, January 29, 2018

What's your favourite biscuit ?

A clear statement of intent from Eamonn Holmes as he returns to the mike at TalkRADIO. Who needs executive producers ?

Dried plums

Two giants of broadcasting....

Chatty man

Eamonn Holmes gets back on the phone-in exercise bicycle this afternoon at TalkRADIO without the services of launch producer Mark Sandell. Their brief radio bromance (they were brought together at short notice by former presenter Sam Delaney) ended in week one, as the hubristic Ulsterman unusually suffered with his vocal chords, and was himself replaced by Richard Madeley and James Whale. 

Talking for three hours a day is hard-pounding, and it looks like there were pretty fundamental disagreements about what to talk about...sofa-stuff or news. Eamonn's believed to have the continued support of son Niall as part of the now-even-more-compact production team.

Scale

BBC spinners have promised the Guardian that “a big, bold package of modernisation that will right the wrongs of the past” is on the way.

“We recognise we have got some things wrong – in particular, the pay of some very senior presenters in news. The wide-ranging plan we will publish on Tuesday addresses these issues and is the next stage in the modernisation programme at the BBC. People want us to act and that’s what we’ve been doing – pay cuts are only one part of the picture."

Let's hope the spinners aren't over-promising. It's remarkable that the ink is dry on such a big bold package just hours before an appearance by senior executives at the Culture Select Committee; especially when the ink is still wet on exact levels of pay cuts for, say, Jon Sopel.

Modernisation ? Well, the options to most seem to be either to redefine performance-related pay, especially for lower ranks who can't all work on ratings-topping shows, or to slink back to a rate for the job, whether you're producing Today, Farming Today, Today In Parliament or today's edition of Newsnight.  Either option will require modelling by leadership, and, frankly, fewer middle managers working harder for less money. That'd be big.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Co-operation ?

Things may be less slightly traumatic than anticipated for Lord Hall when he faces MPs on Wednesday on equal pay. The BBC Women were in more conciliatory mood late last night.

























Over at the Radio Times, Ben Dowell has been briefed that what BBC management wants now is "co-operation" and "good sense".

There is, however, a knitting bag full of loose ends. How about back-pay for Sarah Montague, woefully undervalued for 15 years on Today ? How about a little more for the men and women who fill in when Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce can't do the Ten ?  Why not put the outstanding NUJ/Mishcon de Reya cases to swift independent arbitration ? Where do key BBC figures part-paid through indies, like David Dimbleby and Andrew Neil, stand in all this ?  Why was the BBC, immensely proud of its allegedly rigorous market comparisons, so slow in noticing that no-one (that's NO-ONE) in commercial radio gets over half-a-million to front a daily show ? Can you write down, on one page of A4, Bob Shennan's pay policy on Radio 2 ?  If these market comparisons were off the mark for so long, are you sure Valerie Hughes D'Aeth is worth £310k a year ? And how about those promises from HR not to use confidentiality clauses/nda's/gagging clauses when sorting out exits ?

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Going green

Looks like a return to a green and pleasant land, to judge by first online images of the new, long-awaited BBC/Meteo Group weather maps. Gone the brown sludgy land colour, farewell tilted Britain, and blimey, looks at the size of Scotland....


Longer

Some old background on how we got to BBC stars 'volunteering' to take pay cuts.

When I joined BBC News in 1973, it didn't take long to realise there were four classes of staff - network TV, where faux dynamism and braggodocio won top salaries; network radio, with pipes and cardigans in the newsrooms and Fleet Street escapees trying their hands as reporters; external broadcasting, marooned at Bush, with even lower pay, but lifestyle-protection schemes embedded in  local deals; and regional newsrooms, doing all things light and local.

John Birt arrived in 1987 to run News. He decided that we needed a huge new raft of correspondents, instead of doshing up Fleet Street hacks and academics day-by-day for analysis; we needed 'Editors' in various 'specialities', and we would have a bi-media future, with a central team of 'newsgathering' serving both tv and radio. Peter Jay, Polly Toynbee, Robin Oakley and Daniel Jeffreys came in from the papers (though Polly still believes she got a poor pay deal).  Reporters and correspondents were supported by dedicated producers and go-fers; pay and status inflation was launched in style.

In 1993, John Birt moved up to DG, but within weeks, his sense of entitlement was revealed - he was being paid via a service company, and had been claiming expenses from that company of up to £160k a year. This minor set back did not prevent him from bringing forward a 1994 paper, Managing The Future, which was set to move the whole BBC to 'performance-related pay' within two years.

There were strikes: Charles Wheeler wrote to The Guardian:'The trouble with performance-related pay is that it tends to reward obedience, discourage non-conformism, and to put too much power into the hands of middle managers.'  It was implemented in 1998, with the BBC claiming that 1% of the total pay bill had been set aside for bonuses, increments etc.

Over the years that followed, the-so-called roof of various grades became advisory. Big foreign correspondents in the big capitals expected to bank their salaries, and live in provided accommodation on generous daily rates, with support for their kids' education at home or abroad; they rotated every two or three years, ever upwards, and then were rewarded with a presentation gig on their return to the UK. "Discretionary salary elements" were followed by nudging some presenters into Birt-style service companies (still publicly denied by the BBC). Some stars were signed on long contracts before detailed agreements on the programmes they would host.

Add to this heady mix a perceived competition for talent with ITV, fuelled by Bruce Forsyth's two spells with ITV (1980-87 and 1994-2003), and entitled executives spent many hours in meetings decided how much to give stars to ensure their 'loyalty'. Terry Wogan returned to Radio 2 from his BBC1 chat show with the roughly the same salary, dragging the whole network's talent bill ever upwards.

Current DG Tony Hall left the BBC in 2001; his last year's salary as Director of News was £286k, including a bonus of £44k, benefits of £38k; he was given a pension enhancement of £24k. He could be adding a pension of £150k to his current package - we don't know.

Regular executive bonuses only stopped in 2009. In 2011, Mark Byford left with a huge pension and an extra payment for his last days 'to ensure his loyalty'.

Horror-movie fan John Whittingdale, with a cute team of advisors, successfully planted the £150k disclosure level in the new BBC Charter and is presumably pleased with subsequent catatstrophic injuries. The big strategic move of the last year, taking BBC Studios in the commercial world, is partially designed to keep big deals for producers, directors, and performers out of public scrutiny. Yet MPs and the HMRC - and the new Culture Secretary - generally, are hugely enjoying putting the hair shirt back on Auntie, with News UK and The Daily Mail as their handmaids.

It's hard to work out where this all stops.






Tina time

Pocket rocket Tina Stowell, now Baroness, seems to have been forgiven by Theresa May for her Cameroonian past, and is about to be confirmed as the next chair of the Charity Commission.

Tina once toiled at the BBC, and is set to take over the reins from William Shawcross on February 23, subject to Select Committee approval. She may well be afforded the privilege of releasing the findings of the Commission's investigation into the collapse of Kid's Company, chaired by former BBC chum Alan Yentob. The inquiry started a mere two years and five months ago.

Friday, January 26, 2018

Gratitude

And so, after a wobbly day, Director of News Fran Unsworth can head into the weekend a little more relaxed.

"We are very grateful to Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine, who have agreed that their pay will now be reduced. These are great journalists and presenters, who have a real connection with the audience. We are proud to have them working at the BBC. The final details of some of these changes are being discussed, and there are further conversations that the BBC will have with others in due course".

So, with a little more work to do on Eddie Mair and Andrew Marr, and perhaps a visit to Stephen Nolan in Northern Ireland, some big equal pay anomalies in News have been ironed out.

Now the spotlight turns to James Purnell and Bob Shennan in Radio & Education, for Chris Evans and Steve Wright versus any commercial competitor, never mind BBC Woman comparisons; and Charlotte Moore/Barbara Slater for the Lineker deal. 

Societal deficits

Is it time BBC Chairman Sir David Clementi gripped up the BBC Board ?  In October, the grandees gathered in Salford - and this, below, was all they had to say about equal pay for on-air talent.  Remember, it was July when over 40 women presenters wrote to the DG, and others threatened to sue for equal pay. No wonder Carrie Gracie got the hump.

"The Board noted that the World Service Pay Review, the Gender Pay Gap Report and Equal Pay Audit and Management Response had all been published since the last meeting. Coverage of the reports had been balanced and the Board thanked Anne Bulford and her team for all the work which had gone into the reviews over the summer. The next stage of the Terms and Conditions work had launched and staff had now had sight of their new grading and job family details, along with their position within the pay range for that grade."

Elsewhere on the agenda, news of yet another cunning plan from James Purnell, which secured at least a year's funding......

6.1 The Board considered a new education strategy, which had been developed with input from stakeholders and potential partners. The proposal built significantly on current provision, which is mainly based around curriculum-linked content and large-scale campaigns that tackle societal deficits. It planned to capitalise on advances in digital technology.

[redacted for future publication]

6.5 The Board approved the overall direction of the strategy. The Board agreed the first year’s funding proposal, but the strategy for subsequent years would need to return to the Board where its longer-term funding would be considered as part of the Budget and its delivery approved as part of the Annual Plan.

Silverbacks cowed

It's a grand and honourable tradition of R4 Today programme interviews - the just-before-we-close curveball on a new topic in the news.

Sadly, when Mishal Husain this morning questioned North America Editor Jon Sopel in Davos about Trumpery, she didn't finish with "..and just how big a pay cut are you taking ?".  She couldn't either, under current BBC Rules, throw to co-host Sarah Montague. An astute duty editor might have brought an independent presenter on, down the line from some remote radio car - Miriam O'Reilly, say, or Tess Daly - to raise the issue.

The four silverbacks in retreat (many, including Huw Edwards, presume Sopel's strong hair colour is the result of 'product') are said to be Sopel, Edwards, Jeremy Vine and John Humphrys. The Mail believes management are also offering volunteering options to Andrew Marr and Eddie Mair.

Fran Unsworth's new/old News management team got much of their leverage in this issue thanks to John Humphrys crass warm-up of Jon Sopel, in what he thought was a private moment before an open mike, since made public.  Lord Hall needs a big improvement in the reportable position before next Wednesday's DCMS Select Committee appearance, especially knowing BBC Women had told him ten days ago that his PwC report was rubbish.

So Fran's team who have worked alongside these stars over the years have been sent out to call in favours. But what is needed to win Wednesday is not mates doing deals, but a bold statement that, in News, there is a rate for the job - not driven by clearly in-operative market comparators, but set according to hours, commitment, ability, the scale of the job and the thinking required.

More on "Lessons from History" will follow....

Thursday, January 25, 2018

One step forward

Desmond John Humphrys, 74, seems to be riding to the aid of BBC DG Lord Hall, in volunteering to take another pay cut.

The presenter, who occasionally writes lengthy pieces for the Daily Mail, has told the paper 'It's true I've been talking to the bosses about taking another cut. We haven't mentioned any figures. I volunteered. That seems to be entirely fair and reasonable.'

Currently on a BBC package of something between £600k and £649k, the paper estimates he may come down to between £250k and £299,999 for the Today element, with Mastermind returning around £200k. One presumes he isn't on a final salary pension scheme with the BBC. Now there'll be a hunt for more volunteers.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

It all happened so fast...

Spookily, James Harding, former Director of BBC News, has turned to Borehamwood accountants and tax advisers, Sopher & Co, to help him set up his new, one-share, company, Tortoise Ventures.

They also set up Alan Yentob's company, I Am Curious Productions, back in June 2016. The company has yet to record any figures...will there be any before Al's company director ban ?

James ought to be better connected; father-in-law is Sir Mark Weinberg, of Hambro, Allied Dunbar and St James Place fame.


How new is new ?

The Witchfinders of Ofcom want to re-define "New" Music on Radio 1 and 2. Here's their proposal, designed to biff chart-toppers.

A music track is to be considered “New Music” for a period of either: 
(a) 12 months from first release (whether by physical, radio, download or streaming means), or 
(b) 6 weeks after it enters the Top 20 of the UK Official Singles Chart whichever is sooner.

Next will come a new quota for Radio 1, from 45% to at least 50% 'New Music' in daytime. Busybodies.

Nudge

According to the Times, the BBC have turned to judge and barrister Naomi Ellenbogen to scrutinise and comment on the PwC analysis of equal pay amongst presenters.

Naomi (King David High School, a Liverpool comp and Jurisprudence at New College, Oxford) was called to the Bar in 1992 and appointed QC in 2010, practising from Littleton Chambers (formerly at 2 Crown Office Row) throughout her career. She's a member of the Bar Yacht Club. Ellebogen is German for elbow. She has specialised in equal pay cases for over a decade - but it's unlikely to wash with the BBC Women, who tell the Times the PwC work is flawed.

Meanwhile DG Lord Hall has decided to go mob-handed to the DCMS Select Committee next Wednesday, taking both Anne Bulford and Fran Unsworth. They'll try to pick up the pieces after the MPs have interviewed Carrie Gracie and Michele Stanistreet of the NUJ.

Des res

Rateable values in Great Portland Street may fall soon. Squatters inside and outside the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo.....


Is it today ?


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Remit

A selection of midnight auto-tweets from the Radio & Education machine - clickbait,  or 'preserving serendipity in a digital world' ?


Monday, January 22, 2018

Continuing re-invention

The BBC English Regions are getting a new boss, in the shape of lovable, soft-spoken Gaelophile Ken MacQuarrie, the Director of Nations and Regions.

This is a return to the way things were pre-the-Byfordian Journalism Directorate, which emerged under Greg Dyke in 2006. Director of News Fran Unsworth sheds responsibility for local tv output and local radio stations across England.

Current DG Lord Hall said “There’s one simple ambition behind the move. I want this talented group of staff to work together to shape what we do for communities across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. That’s an exciting prospect. It also means we can really start to re-invent local radio in England – and we’ll be appointing a single editorial head to lead those changes. Kenny will tell you more as we develop our plans in the coming weeks.”

I bet Radio & Education made a stab at wresting control of the Local Radio Stations

Love it or list it

BBC Northern Ireland is having second thoughts about moving from its current headquarters, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

Ever since Scotland got Pacific Quay and Wales secured a site at the bus station at Cardiff, it's been assumed NI would want its own new HQ too. They've flirted with Titanic Quarter, fluttered their eyes at sites off Royal Avenue, and pouted at the Sirocco Works development on the east bank of the Lagan.

Now, the Telegraph says they're leaning towards staying in Ormeau Avenue and undertaking a major refurbishment programme on a building that first opened in 1941. It's much handier for those nice shops and bars. A BBC spokesman said "The review into our property requirements is still ongoing".

Sunday, January 21, 2018

To coin a phrase

A-reader-who-should-know points out the broadcasting heritage of the new BBC Worldwide/Studios board. Anne Sarnoff, President, Americas (with Worldwide since 2010), is married to Richard (they met at Harvard Business School), whose great-uncle was David Sarnoff.

David wrote a letter in June 1922 proposing a new Public Service Broadcasting Company to General Electric: "Broadcasting represents a job of entertaining, informing, and educating the nation and should, therefore, be distinctly regarded as a public service."  This pre-dates "inform, educate and entertain", as espoused by Lord Reith for the BBC, which appears in the first Royal Charter of 1926.

(None of this, however, explains why BBC America shows so much Star Trek...)

Distinctive

And so Wedding Day Winners, the BBC1 show that looks like something sneaked from ITV while Kevin Lygo wasn't looking, finally sinks below 2m - 1.94m in the overnights for Episode 3 (10.5% share).

What will be more galling to Director of Content, Charlotte Moore, is the relative success of cheap and cheerful And They're Off... For Sport Relief, returning 2.55m (14.7%).

Later on BBC1, 'pure drama' Hard Sun continued to dip, down to 1.84m (10.8% share).

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Wrong by 123

A number of eyebrows were raised when the BBC responded to a Freedom of Information enquiry about recruitment to BBC News, back in November: "There was one external candidate recruited to BBC Network News between 17 October 2016 and 17 October 2017."

The enquirer, the exotically named Signor Benati (mentioned, en passant, in Smiley's People) had another go, and asked for an internal review.

Now, an unnamed internal reviewer has reported rather different findings.

"After this review, I can confirm that there were 124 external candidates recruited to BBC Network News between 17 October 2016 and 17 October 2017. The information provided to the applicant on 17 November 2017 was an accurate representation of the way that the information was recorded at the time of the request."

Temping

The Sun (prop News UK, CEO Rebekah Brooks) is the only national to make space this morning for a picture of lingerie model Mel Sykes (Mel Of A Body For 47). This breaks the news that Mel is to join the line-up of TalkRADIO (part of The Wireless Group, acquired by News UK in June 2016), to sit alongside Jamie East, The Sun's film critic, from 1pm to 4pm each weekday.

The paper reveals the pair will occupy the slot until "until a new brand new presenter is unveiled in April".

Friday, January 19, 2018

Crafted language

Kirsty Wark is 100 this year. At least according to the now-widely available BBC Arts 2018 media pack... 

The Many Primes of Muriel Spark - BBC Two Scotland & BBC Four this Spring (1 x 60)
In the centenary of her birth, Kirsty Wark presents a programme about the Scottish writer Muriel Spark. A unique voice in 20th century literature, Speak [sic - ed] was a prolific writer (The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, The Girls Of Slender Means, Memento Mori) who crafted language with precision and a sometimes merciless humour.


Ski pass sorted ?

Is this James Harding's route to Davos ? The former BBC News supremo appeared this morning at the London launch of GlobalGoalsCast, a new-ish podcast operation "that inspires and empowers listeners to make the world a better place by sharing the stories individuals, companies, and organizations that are advancing and achieving a more sustainable world. " Their broadcast partner is CBS, BBC News' new best friend in Ameria.

James was on stage with the podcast hostesses, Edie Lush and Claudia Romo Edelman, wife of Richard, global PR man.

Claudia is looking forward to a Podcasting Session at Davos; she says they originally invited Mark Thompson of the NYT "but he seems to have broken his ankle or something".

Tim Davie's 16

A new executive board of 16 will lead the merged BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide forward from April. Gender balance: 9 to 7 male to female; 12.5% ethnic minority.

Tim Davie, CEO
Mark Linsey, Chief Creative Officer
Tom Fussell, Chief Finance Officer
Anna Mallett, Chief Operating Officer and MD, Production
Martyn Freeman, General Counsel
Jabbar Sardar, HR Director
Hannah Wyatt, MD for Factual Entertainment & Events
Lisa Opie, MD for Factual
Nick Betts, MD for Scripted
Suzy Lamb, MD for Entertainment & Music
Ann Sarnoff, President - Americas
Marcus Arthur, President - UK & Ireland and Australia/New Zealand
Paul Dempsey, President - Global Markets
Charlotte Elston, Director of Communications
David Moody, Director of Strategy & Business Development
Jaclyn Lee-Joe, Chief Marketing Officer

American twist

The press release about BBC Arts 2018, until recently under the jaunty hat of rakish Director Jonty Claypole, doesn't seem to have been issued via the command and control of the extensive BBC Media Centre.

So I'm catching up via other media sources. And thus shocked to learn that Civilisations, the re-invention of Kenneth Clarke's pioneering series from the late sixties, is to be narrated by a YANK.

Co-producers Nutopia and PBS have lighted upon San Francisco-born Liev Schreiber to add his chops to the script. And whilst the principal hosts are British - Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga - plenty of the other contributing sages are from the USA:  Jamal J. Elias, Religious Studies Professor at the University of Pennsylvania; Rebecca Gonzalez-Lauck, National Institute for Anthropology, Mexico; Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo; Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; and Maya Jasanoff, Professor of History at Harvard University.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Fearless

In BBC Arts coverage for 2018, flagship show Imagine will be shining lights into the careers of Tracey Emin, Mel Brooks and Philip Pullman. How on earth does Alan Yentob pin them down ?

Has it come to this ?

Looks like a different sort of conference circuit ahead for former Director of BBC News, James Harding.

"James Harding is speaking at Investec Wealth & Investment Vision conferences at Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Sheffield."

Who can have put him on to this ?

"Kamal Ahmed is speaking at Investec Wealth & Investment Vision conferences at Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester."

Yes, he's still the BBC Economics Editor.

Knockout

ITV's News at Ten beat the BBC's Ten O'Clock News in the ratings last night - mainly because BBC1's live coverage of Chelsea v Norwich in the FA Cup started late, thanks to the District Line and then went to extra time and penalties.

ITV's bulletin was watched by an average of 2.95m according to the overnights, a 17.5% share of the available audience. The BBC bulletin, which arrived at 22.50, got an average of 2.88m, a 26.9% share.  It might be amusing if anyone can track down a Newsnight figure.

Rugby fan and newscaster Huw Edwards (last year's BBC earnings between £550k and £599,999) demonstrated his expensive taste in footwear, at four minutes past ten.


Sitrep

Johnston Press' share price hit a new 52 week low of 9p yesterday, valuing the company at less than £10m. It has eighteen months to come up with a plan to deal with a £220m bond, which is costing the company £19m interest a year. CEO Ashley Highfield earned £556k last year, in salary and pension contributions. JP's auditors are Deloitte, investment bankers are Rothschild, and brokers are Liberum and Panmure Gordon.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Lift passes

No sign - as yet - of between-jobs James Harding in the listings of speakers at Davos 2018.  He managed attendance in most of the BBC years, and last year interviewed, cheerfully, Kevin Spacey.

His old co-presenter, Zanny Minton-Beddoes, of the Economist is going, as are Sally Bundock and Mishal Husain of the BBC. Stephanie Flanders, an old flame of Harding, is on the list (she departed the BBC just as Harding arrived in 2013).

Both Theresa May and Philip Hammond are billed, though as yet, there's no detail as to which areas of their boundless expertise will be showcased.

Ed Doolan

A chum with Birmingham in his cv writes:

He'd interviewed just about everyone - prime ministers and presidents and earned a reputation as a champion of victims of bureaucracy. His show on Birmingham's Radio WM put the station on the RAJAR map after he was poached from the city's hugely successful BRMB 35 years ago.

He wad a gregarious Aussie-born Anglophile, the first local radio presenter to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame, in 2004. He was also awarded the MBE. He gave up his daily radio show in 2011 and was diagnosed with vascular dementia a year later.

Before Ed joined WM, many of us who cut our teeth on the station felt we were broadcasting in a vacuum. Ed leaves another.

Boiling up and down

Representatives of 'BBC Women' are due to meet BBC DG Lord Hall and his deputy Anne Bulford this week, to discuss the PwC report on presenter pay.

PwC worked with Eversheds on the first BBC equal pay 'audit' - not perhaps the re-assuring word of yore, as we remember fully-audited Kid's Company and Carillion - and it was a sampling exercise. Director of News Fran Unsworth has promised that this current exercise will be  'a comprehensive analysis of presenter pay. Everyone at the BBC has wanted to do this as quickly as possible, but equally, we need to get it right. PwC are working with us to ensure an objective external assessment.'

So there'll be disappointment if the audit uses samples, rather than all the data about all presenters - crikey, how many can there be ?  And shouldn't the BBC be able to track equal pay on its own, without external accountants ?

Trying

Mixed results for ITV's latest go at "tentpole tv". Britain's Favourite Dogs: The Top 100 ran over two and a half hours from 7.30pm last night, to an average audience of 3.3m, and a 16.1% share of those watching any tv.

Meanwhile BARB figures for on-demand viewing in Christmas week show that, apart from catching up on scheduled shows, the audience put Peaky Blinders Series 1 and 2 in the bottom half of the Top 100 iPlayer rankings, alongside key episodes of Hey Duggee and Bing, child-pacifiers from CBeebies. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Entente

Who got to meet the French Culture Secretary, Francoise Nyssen, last week ?



Xanadu


Monday, January 15, 2018

Rotation

As the BBC Ideas Service sallies forth into 2018, ('Managing Your Mind At Work', 'Why the Millennium Bug didn't actually bite', spare a thought for BBC iWonder, the last stab at this sort of thing. 

Like 'Ideas', iWonder was billed as a digital product for curious minds, 'a new way to tell stories on the web'. It was based in the BBC Knowledge and Learning department, and was launched in January 2014. Short guides to burning topics were 'presented' by Rachel Riley, Gemma Cairney, Tom Service and Anita Rani, amongst others. It seems to be frozen in time now.

Andrew Pipes was the 'product manager'. He's now moved on, to help the Co-op re-imagine funeral care. 

Sorting office

Who's leading on equal pay for the beleaguered BBC ?  Until November this year, Sally-Anne Borrill carried the title Head of Reward - she's now landed a job with Kellogg's European operations, based in Manchester.

There was an ad for a Director of Reward, back in March last year, but I can find no subsequent announcement of an appointment. Dale Haddon, ex-Royal Mail Group, is HR Director, News and Employee Relations, on £191,000 - more than the US Ambassador, The Prime Minister, Carrie Gracie and a few others mentioned by incoming Culture Secretary Matthew Hancock. HR supremo, thought-leader and Member of The Court of The Guild of Human Resource Professionals, Valerie Hughes D'Aeth is on £310,000.  That puts her in the same pay band as Nick Knowles, Sue Barker, Eddie Mair and Lauren Laverne, which surely has to be right. 

Mantles

Gaslighting, to mean manipulating a vulnerable target to make them question their own memory, beliefs and perhaps sanity, comes from the play Gas Light, by British writer Patrick Hamilton, born in Hassocks in 1904.

His parents were writers, but hit hard times (alcohol may have been involved), and Patrick moved with his mother to boarding houses in Hove and Chiswick. He was taken from Westminster School age 15, and, after trying his hand at acting, started writing. His first novel, Monday Morning, was written at 19, and published two years later - it featured Comedic Capital Letters, which followed in most later works. Craven House (life in boarding houses) and Twopence Coloured (19-year-old leaves Hove for a try at the London stage) followed.

The 1929 play Rope (Rope's End in the USA) was later adapted for Alfred Hitchcock's film, starring James Stewart. Gas Light, 'A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts' was first performed at the Richmond Theatre in December 1938, before a West End transfer to the Apollo, where customers during the six-month run including George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Re-titled Angel Street for thre Americans, it ran on Broadway for four years - and afforded Patrick a whisky-based lifestyle which eventually killed him.

Gaslight has been filmed twice. George Cukor’s 1944 version for MGM starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The 1940 British black-and-white film directed by Thorold Dickinson starred Diana Wynyard and Anton Walbrook.

The key bit of the plot for today's readers: Victorian villain Jack Manningham's hunt for hidden jewels in an adjacent flat causes the gas lights in his own apartment to dim; but he keeps assuring his paranoid wife Bella that she's just imagining it.

Getting it right

BBC World, the advertising-funded international news channel, has a new woman at the helm of its news programmes, after the departure of Anna Williams back in October.

Liz Corbin has three years experience as an Assistant Editor on the channel, and has been running the Singapore bureau (where lumps of overnight broadcasting are now produced) for nearly five years.

She came to the BBC News machine early, after a degree in Maths and Psychology at Leicester. The first job on her cv is as a broadcast assistant; in 2001, she says she was "BBC News 24's first text producer. Working in the control room on 9/11 writing the on-air captions".   Most recently she's been writing again, as Editor of the BBC's Reality Check. "The claim that the UK sent £350m per week to the EU is wrong."

She's giving a lecture on fact-checking at Oxford University on Wednesday afternoon.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Mine's a lime and soda

I hope Charlotte Moore, BBC Director of Content, is having a dry January. After a stonking Christmas, the fizz of Saturday nights has gone flat.

The second episode of Wedding Day Winners showed only a slight drop on the first, at 2.18m. But 2m million viewers who'd been watching Pointless Celebrities found something better to do.  And drama Hard Sun (part filmed on Parys Mountain, Anglesey) dropped from 3.43m for the opener to 2.19m. Co-production partners are the streaming service Hulu. Money doesn't always guarantee success.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

January transfer window

Rebekah Brooks seems to have doshed up TalkRADIO in a bid to get more listeners for her investment. The station, less than two years old, is stuck at around 256,000 weekly reach. Now station boss Dennie Morris has enough money to strike a deal with a new production company, Sixty Billion Broadcast, co-owned by Eamonn Holmes, Sam Delaney and tv and radio producer Ben Rigden.

They will provide Eamon Holmes as drivetime host (spookily replacing Sam Delaney), and the producer will be multi-award winning Mark Sandell (We worked together launching 5Live Breakfast), lately toiling with Vanessa Feltz at Radio 2 for Wise Buddah.


Multiplier

A grim, unrelenting week for those toiling in BBC News. I'm afraid I might add to it.

Former BBC newsman Roger Mosey has a column in the New Statesman. Roger might well have counselled some of those seeking the job of Director of News, and everyone knew that that interviews would require answers on how to make big savings. "The official figure is £80m over the next three years; and candidates for the top job were interviewed on the basis that up to £50m of savings could be needed in the next financial year."

It's difficult to put a scale on what cutting £50m in one year might mean. The spending on BBC News as a whole is never published in one lump; it takes money from the networks that carry its output, as well as getting some money direct from the Corporate Centre for News Online, BBC Parliament etc, so its hard for outsiders to calculate what the total budget at Fran Unsworth's disposal looks like.

These cross-trading complications are replicated internally in News, with the most expensive unit, Newsgathering, sucking up money from other news departments (and taking a hefty slice of the new Foreign Office funding).

Cuts in News are always job heavy - the vast majority of News spend is on salaries. £8m a year is soon to be providing 150 'free' reporters for local papers, putting their total cost per head - pensions, training, overheads, at around £53k each. Taking that as a median, you might save your £50m by cutting over 900 jobs, out of an effective full-time headcount around 6,700.  That's just over 13%.



.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Timing

Expert property developer and genius Donald Trump seems to have lost sight of how long major building projects can take in capital cities. The decision to move the US Embassy in London was taken under George W Bush in October 2008, after several years of option evaluation.

The Trump Tower in New York took a mere four years to deliver, though it cost double its original estimate.


Hole in the ground

Ofcom has yet to issue guidance on use of the word 'shithole' by broadcasters.

After extensive research in 2016, it categorised 47 words as either 'mild', 'medium', or 'strong', reminding broadcasters that context was important, as was repetition and 'aggression'.

'Arse' - mild, generally of little concern.

'Arsehole' - medium, potentially unacceptable pre-watershed.

'Shit' - medium, potentially
unacceptable pre-watershed. Common language used in everyday life but problematic when used aggressively or repeatedly. Concerns about children learning the word.

Of course, there is no watershed for radio. 'Shithole' was heard loud and clear on Radio 4 this morning in the 0700 and 0800 bulletins.

BBC subs and US Preidents seeking to push boundaries might like to consider some other words classified by Ofcom as 'medium' for future broadcasts...

Balls
Bint
Bitch
Bollocks
Bullshit
Feck
Effing
Munter
Pissed
Pissed Off
Son of a bitch
Tits

Anchors aweigh

The UK's leading news anchors have had a mild pop at Donald Trump this morning.



Have a cigar, Tone...

The animation team serving Taiwanese satirical 'news' operation, Tomonews, operating since 2013, have had a field day with Carrie Gracie's resignation as the BBC's China Editor.

Post-ed

BBC News' shift to increased coverage of The Arts continues this week, with the BBC News at 6 and at 10, The Today Programme and The Andrew Marr Show featuring interviews with Stephen Spielberg, who, uncannily, has a new film to promote. The Graham Norton Show has to make do with its stars, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks - but then, it's not news and current affairs...

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Ideologue ?

James Purnell's Charter offer of 'BBC Ideas' has its first manifestation - a Beta website with links to thirty or so "short films" for curious minds.

The production credits show how many bits of the BBC have set up kitchen-table operations in a bid to create videos that go viral - BBC World Service, BBC Woman's Hour, Newsnight, BBC Stories, BBC3, Tomorrow's World, Radio 4, BBC Archive.  Some date back to 2016. BBC Ideas has made some new ones - "Should we teach ethics to driverless cars ?" - and commissioned others, from Intelligence Squared, Angie Sharp Media, Dayglow & Pencil & Pepper and more.

There was an early morning tweet linking to "How to negotiate a pay rise", since deleted. 

Where's Sarah ?

Today editor Sarah Sands seems to have been missing from the deck, at least physically, on the morning of the Carrie Gracie Special Edition. She writes in a New Statesman diary that "an overnight delay on a flight home from Cape Town gave me a distant perspective".

"As a relative newcomer, I watch in wonder at the standards the corporation is expected to maintain. Can you imagine any newspaper offering transparency on all salaries, with a guarantee that journalists with similar responsibilities are paid the same, irrespective of circumstance? The protest by Carrie Gracie speaks to a deeper truth. There is an angry weariness with male power structures. It is true that men at the BBC have been paid more, as in all other businesses, but it is a complicated problem. Do you throw more cash at it, or try to bring down the salaries of those who have benefited in the past? " [Sarah presides, apparently helplessly, over a healthy spread - Sarah Montague < £150k, John Humphrys >£600k.]

"Our team discussions about the awkwardness of Gracie presenting Radio 4’s Today, while also being the story, covered only the maintenance of impartiality.....Everyone is trying to do the right thing. In a previous life, in which HR departments were basically a firing squad, if a staff journalist had denounced the Evening Standard in another newspaper the discussion would have been less good-natured. That is what gives me continuing faith in the BBC."

Nae sae fast

Witchfinder Bakhurst of Ofcom has called in the BBC's plans for a second tv channel in Scotland for a full BBC Competition Assessment. Kevin has rejected a short form of assessment open to him, and the final decision will only come in July. In his letter to the BBC, Kev is pretty snotty about the BBC's own Public Interest Test.  Meanwhile, the BBC has already started recruiting the first of 80 extra journalists deemed necessary to deliver the new channel's nightly international and national news at 9pm.

Kevin has been whipped into a frenzy by 17 responses to an Ofcom invitation to comment. Here's his summary of what they were worried about...

Many respondents welcomed the BBC’s proposal, acknowledging its potential value to Scottish audiences, and benefit to growth in the Scottish media sector. However, respondents also raised a number of concerns. Some questioned whether the channel was adequately funded to deliver a quality service, generating significant public value. Others considered aspects of the BBC’s proposal could have a substantial impact across the media sector, in particular by crowding out competition. Finally, many respondents challenged what they perceived to be a lack of detail in the BBC’s proposal, and the absence of the detailed economic analysis which the BBC had used to make its assessment of potential market impact.

All respondents agreed that the proposal represented a material change to the BBC’s UK Public Services. Most respondents considered that it would be appropriate for Ofcom to assesss the BBC’s proposals via a BCA. However, some favoured a Shorter Assessment as they considered that a BCA could delay the launch of the BBC’s proposed service.

Star vehicles

The power of Sarah Lancashire to drag viewers across channels was demonstrated last night with the launch of four-part drama Kiri on Channel 4 at 9pm. It was watched by an average of 3.23m, winning a 15.5% share of the available audience.

It dented the second episode of Kay Mellor's Girlfriends on ITV, down nearly 1.3m on the first outing.

To do

Whilst BBC mandarins wait to receive the latest consultant report on equal pay, maybe the finance and HR teams (who, you'd think, ought to be capable of delivering such a report) could get busy with a little transparency housekeeping.

The latest released details of senior management expenses now date back to Quarter 4 2016/17; the details of salaries were last updated in July 2017.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Carnage

Lewis Carnie, the Boogies With Wolves chieftain at the helm of Radio 2, has taken an axe to some of the network's tallest totem polls.

Listen to the Band, which has existed in various forms since the Second World War and continually on BBC Radio 2 since 1976, features brass band music. There are thought to be some 100,000 brass players in the UK, and around 200 brass bands, includling more than a handful embedded in our universities. The current presenter, Frank Renton, is approaching his eighties. Big Lew assures us "brass band music will continue to be played elsewhere".

The Organist Entertains has been a weekly feature of the Radio 2 schedules since 1969, first presented by Robin Richmond until current host Nigel Ogden took over in 1980 (though he'd started depping for Richmond in 1971). Nigel is 63.

Paul Jones, frontman for Manfred Mann, is dropped as presenter of The Blues Show. He is 75, has been presenting on Radio 3 for 30 years, and can be found wailing with his mouthorgan on the current Van Morrison cd. Cerys Matthews takes over. She's 48 and a woman.

The Radio 2 Arts show, running for ten years, tossed between Jonathan Ross and Claudia Winkleman is "rested".  Has some one told James Purnell ?

With a firm hand on his good luck charms, Lewis has fearlessly introduced a woman to the weekday day time schedules, albeit alongside Simon Mayo at Drivetime. Mayo is currently paid somewhere north of £350k for the show plus his once a week gig at 5Live. Jo Whiley, currently on between £150k and £199,999, has been assured her salary will match Simon's, at least for the Radio 2 bit. Is it possible a presentation duo on Radio 2 at tea time is worth £600k ?

Philip Eden

Sad to report the death of Philip Eden, Radio 5 Live's chief weather forecaster from the start in 1994, through to 2005. He knew his stuff, and communicated a genuine interest and enthusiasm for forecasting.

At the age of seven, he was cutting out the daily weather panel from the family newspaper, at home in Luton. He studied Geography at Birmingham University,  moving on to an MSc in Applied Meteorology and Climatology. He joined the technical staff at  Edgbaston Observatory in 1973, and sharpened his forecasting in the Middle East and North Sea at Imcos Marine between 1976 and 1981, and then at Noble Denton until 1986.

By the mid-80s, Philip was steering towards a more media-orientated career, helping Noble Denton win newspaper and radio contracts at a time when competing with the Met Office in the private sector was far from easy. Philip soon left his mark as a forecast presenter on London’s LBC radio, as well as column editor in the now defunct Today newspaper. Indeed, such was his popularity that both clients wanted him exclusively so he left Noble Denton to start his own private weather business in 1986.

Radio 5 Live signed him up for their launch team. The PR photograph was the smartest many of us had seen him. Working long shifts, he favoured trainers and jeans, both worn close to extinction.

Philip was Vice President of the Royal Meteorological Society from 2007 to 2009. He was awarded the Society's Outstanding Service Medal in May 2015, the Gordon Manley Weather Prize in December 2000 and the Michael Hunt Award in December 1992. Loads of books, columns and several extensive websites of weather records are his legacy. Hacks will remember him for his largely unending patience with our arrogance.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Shaper

No stinting on solicitors' fees by Carrie Gracie. She's gone to Mishcon de Reya employment partner Jennifer Millins (Challoner's High and BA French and Hispanic Studies Nottingham), who is said to be advising at least ten disgruntled BBC women.

Bagging Munros

Where do you want to be when there's a front-page giant-headline steaming row about how much you pay your key female staff ?

How about starting a Fellowship at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in classrooms and libraries a stroll from the Hudson River at the north end of Manhattan ?  Yes, that's where the BBC's Head of Newsgathering, Jonathan Munro is....

Growth in the job

Old hands have been mapping out old BBC News salaries. One who held the title Peking Correspondent in 1985 was on a basic salary of £19,760 - equivalent to £56k today. Another, when Middle East Correspondent in 1992, was on £40k - which, taking inflation into account, would be around £76k now.

So how did Jon Sopel rise above £200k as North America Editor ?  One suspects he did quite well presenting the The Politics Show from 2005 to 2011, where he replaced Jeremy Vine. Then he joined the News Channel, and most recently was the regular presenter of Global with Jon Sopel on BBC World, from 2012 to 2014. In those days, retaining talent was the name of the BBC management approach, fuelled by the idea that pay should be related to performance, rather than standardised across a big public service operation.

Carrie Gracie was assured she swould be on level pegging with the North America Editor back in 2013, when she agreed to become China Editor; and Mark Mardell may well have been on £135k. The problem stems from whoever set Jon's salary deal in April 2014. Step forward Jonathan Munro, Head of Newsgathering, probably aided by James Harding's batman, Keith Blackmore.

Meanwhile, the BBC loves rulings. Yesterday morning, according to Press Gazette, “Fran Unsworth has ruled that anyone who has tweeted or indicated a position on BBC pay – not just Carrie Gracie – cannot present an item about BBC pay in future.”

Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey stepped aside from interviewing Gracie, with former Guardian media editor Jane Martinson stepping in. Garvey told Press Gazette the decision for her not to speak to Gracie was made by her editor but that she thought it was the right move, saying a BBC presenter interviewing another BBC presenter felt “somewhat farcical”.

She said: “I have not been made to feel that I couldn’t speak up. I would not carry on working if they were putting me under some kind of pressure – and they haven’t.”

But, she added: “The BBC are going to really struggle to find a BBC female journalist who does not believe in equal pay. I mean where is that woman and why is she working for the BBC? This is just ridiculous and they know it is really.”

The BBC doesn't have long to work out a position on all this; they can't avoid the microphone themselves forever - but Fran and Lord Hall need a solution, not a problem that dribbles on through HR procedures. In the same way as the BBC Money Tree has been shaken for Re-invention, Local Radio, The Arts, Talking to Boxes in the Corner of Rooms and more, cash has to be set aside to sort credible equality above £100k in News - and to sort out back pay over time.

Monday, January 8, 2018

The figures

Carrie Gracie earned £135k a year as BBC China Editor. After the BBC's enforced pay disclosures of salaries over £150k, she asked for equal pay with other international 'Editors' - something she thought she'd already negotiated when she accepted the Beijing job. She was offered an additional £45k - bringing her deal up to £180k.  But Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen is paid somewhere between £150k and £199,999, and North America Editor Jon Sopels get between £200k and £249,999k - so she rejected the offer, and got fed up waiting for the outcome of a BBC grievance procedure. 

She wants the BBC to demonstrate "some seriousness" in dealing with this issue.

What A Carrie On

A classic edition of Today this morning, co-presented by John Humphrys and The Woman Who Was The Third Headline Story.

The timing of all this is interesting. Carrie Gracie says she's stepped down from her role as China Editor, after first being denied equal pay with other international Editors, and then disputing, through the BBC's legendary and arcane grievance procedures, the offer of a rise which she deemed 'unequal'. She's got fed up with waiting, and seems to have demoted herself back to London-based presenter in the BBC Newsroom.

The BBC mandarins have been wrong-footed - the news broke last night, ahead of Carrie's prime time presentation shift - but spookily, Carrie had a website ready to go, designed by Ridders&Co, complete with her letter to the BBC Audience, and a full catalogue with links to her key films and radio reports over the past four years. The Times made the story a front page lead.

Meanwhile, Carrie soldiered on with her presentation. One job was listening to BBC North America Editor, Jon Sopel, in an interview probably recorded at midnight East Coast time with John Humphrys. Jon is paid over £200,000. Washington hours means live broadcasting for the Six and Ten O'Clock bulletins almost within office hours from a bureau of 80 odd staff. In the past year, he's found time to write and personally promote a BBC book, If Only They Didn't Speak English: Notes From Trump's America.

One of Carrie's problems is that BBC managers, including Fran Unsworth, are reported to have described her role as 'part-time'. It may be that she agreed longer than usual periods of working from London, to help with teenage children back home in south-west London. But clearly, BBC HR have failed to convince Carrie, on less than £150k, of the appropriateness of Sopel differential.

Entertainingly, the Today team booked Mariella Frostrup as a surrogate for Carrie, in order to cover the story.


Carrie will be interviewed on Woman's Hour this morning, where we might get more clarity.

Meanwhile, Lord Hall will be asking for a progress report from HR supremo Valerie Hughes D'Aeth, on the 120 active cases on pay being backed by the NUJ, and another 80 (at least) who are making their own cases. Old school HR may try the argument that Carrie has effectively sacked herself - but she's won the PR battle and looks as safe as houses. If others take the Carrie route, Val's got trouble - and the first brave person who asks for back pay (could it be Sarah Montague ?) through the courts will alarm the BBC's top-paid staff member, Anne Bulford.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Money matters

The BBC's China Editor Carrie Gracie has resigned - from the post, though not apparently from the BBC. She's been refused pay parity with other international 'editors', and her grievance procedure is making no progress. She was persuaded to take up the role in Beijing by former BBC News boss James Harding, back in December 2013. She says she will now return to her previous role - in the BBC Newsroom, where she was a presenter on the News Channel. There, she disclosed her salary as £92,000 back in 2009. On the News Channel, Victoria Derbyshire is paid more than £200k; Ben Brown and Gavin Esler (who left full-time last year) both earned more than £150k.

Here's Carrie's pained letter of explanation....

Dear BBC Audience, 

My name is Carrie Gracie and I have been a BBC journalist for three decades. With great regret, I have left my post as China Editor to speak out publicly on a crisis of trust at the BBC. The BBC belongs to you, the licence fee payer. I believe you have a right to know that it is breaking equality law and resisting pressure for a fair and transparent pay structure. 

In thirty years at the BBC, I have never sought to make myself the story and never publicly criticised the organisation I love. I am not asking for more money. I believe I am very well paid already – especially as someone working for a publicly funded organisation. I simply want the BBC to abide by the law and value men and women equally. On pay, the BBC is not living up to its stated values of trust, honesty and accountability. Salary disclosures the BBC was forced to make six months ago revealed not only unacceptably high pay for top presenters and managers but also an indefensible pay gap between men and women doing equal work. 

These revelations damaged the trust of BBC staff. For the first time, women saw hard evidence of what they’d long suspected, that they are not being valued equally. Many have since sought pay equality through internal negotiation but managers still deny there is a problem. This bunker mentality is likely to end in a disastrous legal defeat for the BBC and an exodus of female talent at every level. 

Mine is just one story of inequality among many, but I hope it will help you understand why I feel obliged to speak out. I am a China specialist, fluent in Mandarin and with nearly three decades of reporting the story. Four years ago, the BBC urged me to take the newly created post of China Editor. I knew the job would demand sacrifices and resilience. I would have to work 5000 miles from my teenage children, and in a heavily censored one-party state I would face surveillance, police harassment and official intimidation. I accepted the challenges while stressing to my bosses that I must be paid equally with my male peers. Like many other BBC women, I had long suspected that I was routinely paid less, and at this point in my career, I was determined not to let it happen again. 

Believing that I had secured pay parity with men in equivalent roles, I set off for Beijing. In the past four years, the BBC has had four international editors - two men and two women. The Equality Act 2010 states that men and women doing equal work must receive equal pay. But last July I learned that in the previous financial year, the two men earned at least 50% more than the two women. 

Despite the BBC’s public insistence that my appointment demonstrated its commitment to gender equality, and despite my own insistence that equality was a condition of taking up the post, my managers had yet again judged that women's work was worth much less than men's. 

My bewilderment turned to dismay when I heard the BBC complain of being forced to make these pay disclosures. Without them, I and many other BBC women would never have learned the truth. I told my bosses the only acceptable resolution would be for all the international editors to be paid the same amount. The right amount would be for them to decide, and I made clear I wasn't seeking a pay rise, just equal pay. 

Instead the BBC offered me a big pay rise which remained far short of equality. It said there were differences between roles which justified the pay gap, but it has refused to explain these differences. Since turning down an unequal pay rise, I have been subjected to a dismayingly incompetent and undermining grievance process which still has no outcome. Enough is enough. 

The rise of China is one of the biggest stories of our time and one of the hardest to tell. I cannot do it justice while battling my bosses and a byzantine complaints process. Last week I left my role as China Editor and will now return to my former post in the TV newsroom where I expect to be paid equally.

For BBC women this is not just a matter of one year’s salary or two. Taking into account disadvantageous contracts and pension entitlements, it is a gulf that will last a lifetime. Many of the women affected are not highly paid ‘stars’ but hard-working producers on modest salaries. Often women from ethnic minorities suffer wider pay gaps than the rest. This is not the gender pay gap that the BBC admits to. It is not men earning more because they do more of the jobs which pay better. It is men earning more in the same jobs or jobs of equal value. It is pay discrimination and it is illegal. 

On learning the shocking scale of inequality last July, BBC women began to come together to tackle the culture of secrecy that helps perpetuate it. We shared our pay details and asked male colleagues to do the same. Meanwhile the BBC conducted various reviews. The outgoing Director of News said last month, “We did a full equal pay audit which showed there is equal pay across the BBC.” But this was not a full audit. It excluded the women with the biggest pay gaps. 

The BBC has now begun a ‘talent review’ but the women affected have no confidence in it. Up to two hundred BBC women have made pay complaints only to be told repeatedly there is no pay discrimination at the BBC. Can we all be wrong? I no longer trust our management to give an honest answer. In fact, the only BBC women who can be sure they do not suffer pay discrimination are senior managers whose salaries are published. For example, we have a new, female, Director of News who did not have to fight to earn the same as her male predecessor because his £340 000 salary was published and so was hers. Elsewhere, pay secrecy makes BBC women as vulnerable as they are in many other workplaces. 

How to put things right? The BBC must admit the problem, apologise and set in place an equal, fair and transparent pay structure. To avoid wasting your licence fee on an unwinnable court fight against female staff, the BBC should immediately agree to independent arbitration to settle individual cases. Patience and good will are running out. In the six months since July’s revelations, the BBC has attempted a botched solution based on divide and rule. It has offered some women pay ‘revisions’ which do not guarantee equality, while locking down other women in a protracted complaints process. We have felt trapped. 

Speaking out carries the risk of disciplinary measures or even dismissal; litigation can destroy careers and be financially ruinous. What's more the BBC often settles cases out of court and demands non-disclosure agreements, a habit unworthy of an organisation committed to truth, and one which does nothing to resolve the systemic problem. 

None of this is an indictment of individual managers. I am grateful for their personal support and for their editorial integrity in the face of censorship pressure in China. But for far too long, a secretive and illegal BBC pay culture has inflicted dishonourable choices on those who enforce it. This must change. Meanwhile we are by no means the only workplace with hidden pay discrimination and the pressure for transparency is only growing. 

I hope rival news organisations will not use this letter as a stick with which to beat the BBC, but instead reflect on their own equality issues. It is painful to leave my China post abruptly and to say goodbye to the team in the BBC’s Beijing bureau. But most of them are brilliant young women. I don’t want their generation to have to fight this battle in the future because my generation failed to win it now. To women of any age in any workplace who are confronting pay discrimination, I wish you the solidarity of a strong sisterhood and the support of male colleagues. It is a century since women first won the right to vote in Britain. Let us honour that brave generation by making this the year we win equal pay.

Saintly

21st century church fresco unearthed.


Quickie divorce ?

Poor old BBC1 can't get the downmarket stuff right, it seems. Wedding Day Winners - not a cheap show, to judge by the closing credits - started with an audience of 2.2m. More than a million and half viewers who'd been happy with a repeat of Pointless Celebrities swerved the new big idea for Saturday night.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Dramaturgy

If you're allowed to include +1 ratings, ITV scored a higher average audience for its drama output in 2017 than BBC1.

Here's the figures for the past three years.

2015: BBC1  5.94m (170 hours), ITV (inc +1)  6.09m (117 hours)
2016: BBC1 5.68m (165 hours), ITV (inc +1) 5.42m (155 hours)
2017: BBC1 6.29m (158 hours), ITV (inc +1)  6.42m (140 hours)

Without +1, ITV's average for 2017 would be 5.97m.

Emolument

The elevation of Martin Bashir from mere Religious Affairs Corrrespondent to Religion Editor adds another problems to the in-tray of new BBC News boss Fran Unsworth - where should Martin's salary end up ?

There's a tangle of anger and formal grievances amongst BBC 'Editors' about relativities, since the Government-enforced disclosures of salaries over £150k. At the top of the pile sit North America Editor Jon Sopel and Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, in the £200,000 to £249,999 band.

Then comes World Affairs Editor and Greatest Living Journalist John Simpson, in the £150,000 to £199,999 band - though on a limited number of days. Also in that band, Economics Editor Kamal Ahmed, Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen and Home Editor Mark Easton.

There's no sign of Europe Editor Katya Adler, China Editor Carrie Gracie, Media Editor Amol Rajan, Health Editor Hugh Pym, Business Editor Simon Jack, Scotland Editor Sarah Smith, Arts Editor Will Gompertz, Science Editor David Shukman, Technology Editor Rory Cellan-Jones and Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys - all of whom will be watching where Bashir the Bass-player ends up. 

Friday, January 5, 2018

Anointed

No sign of an advert, internal or external, and lo, Martin Bashir is the BBC's Religion Editor.  Presumably there was a laying on of hands....


Lift and shift

Five Live football commentator Alan Green must have rubbed a colleague or two up the wrong way. The Sun has been told he's refusing to help carry broadcasting equipment to matches, because he is physically unable. The Sun says this means extra effort must be hired to deliver the kit, at an estimated £200 a game.

In the 70s, match reporters would gather at Broadcasting House on Fridays, to collect their COOBEs (Commentator Operator Outside Broadcast Equipment) ahead of Saturday's fixtures. The equipment has all got smaller in size - full match commentaries can be achieved with laptops, lip-mikes and a small mixer desk.

One presumes Mr Green has full assistance with his baggage when travelling to Atlanta for his US commentary duties.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Big in the States

Year-end figures for BBC America suggest the channel has increased its primetime viewing figures by 21% compared to 2016. Still, they're not huge, at an average of 279,000 viewers (just above the Do It Yourself channel; BBC Radio Newcastle has a weekly reach of 269,000). The totting up runs to 3rd December, before BBC America decided it was interested in darts.

BBC America is run for the BBC by AMC, which saw its own ratings fall by 16% to an average of 1,088,000. There are no figures for BBC World News, distributed by AMC - the lowest channel in the end of year rankings for 136 channels is Comedy.TV, with an average of 2,000 viewers in peak-time. 

Re-inventing the BBC

In the first week of the New Year, the BBC external jobs website is carrying 196 jobs adverts, some for more than one person, in a mixture of permanent and fixed term contracts. The majority - 106 - sit within Design & Engineering, requiring software skills to work on 'new products'. Of the remaining 90, 22 are funded by the new injection of Foreign Office funding. 

Credence

Language matters. Are 'juicy revelations' really equivalent to 'explosive claims' ?


Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Down

The second serving of McMafia, featuring Eddie Jordan dragging James Norton further into a life or death struggle with Russian oligar-chic gangsters, was watched by an average of 4.84m, according to the overnight ratings.

That's more than a million down on the opener, as tv viewers sampled instead the launch of Celebrity Big Brother (2.07m) on C5, or The Greatest TV Moments of All Time on ITV (2.24m).

Where's Danny ?

I was doing a little research on outsiders who might challenge for DG, should Lord Hall show signs of tiredness, and checked on the BBC's former Director of Television, Danny Cohen.

He has a regular gig on his wife's Sirius XM chatshow. Noreena Hertz hosts Megahertz standing up. If you watch the Facebook version throughout, you rather hope she'd take a break and go to the toilet. Other guests include Simon Schama and Mona Chalabi. The toe-curling one-to-one with hubby starts at 44.43.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Hokum

The head-to-head clash of expensive international big crime drama, filmed across several countries, ended in a win for BBC1's McMafia, watched by an average of 5.57m according to the overnight ratings.

Spectre, the most expensive James Bond film to date (estimated at £245m), averaged 4.96m for ITV (and that includes those watching on +1, a service denied to the BBC by the Trust).

McMafia, with tons of extras in the first outing (Surely we'll get get an ambassdor's reception worthy of Sarah Sands soon), is said to cost around £2m an episode, over eight. The audience figures for tonight's second episode will see whether or not the investment of licence-fees was justified.

For those worried about the lack of kilts in episode one, the Mc is a reference to McDonald's, the worldwide nutrition chain.

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