All change !

You'd hardly be surprised that, in the current white heat of reinvention at Broadcasting House, Alan Dickson, Chief Operating and Financial Officer of BBC News, is changing his top team, to enable them to "work more seamlessly and effectively". It's all about "empowering our senior managers to lead our brilliant teams towards the challenges and opportunities of the BBC’s digital future."

For insiders who may have been puzzled by Alan's re-structuring note, I append a helpful diagram.


  










Meanwhile, at BBC Newsgathering, Jasmin Buttar appears to have moved on from her role as Editor of the Business and Economics Unit; Dominic Ball has been appointed to the post.

Tomorrow Kamal Ahmed takes on his new role as Editorial Director; in the New Year, reporter/presenter Sophie Long, once squired by Kamal, becomes Los Angeles correspondent, some fair distance away.

Bespoke

Some sotto voce conversations in dark corners of Twitter this morning, about the best width for suit trousers these days....

Who was there ?

An eclectic guest list for the launch of BBC Sounds - Jeremy Vine, Tony Blackburn, Bob Harris and Gary Davies representing the male backbone of Radio 2; Tom Service, Georgia Mann and John Wilson choogling to Chic from the highbrow end; Nick Robinson and Matthew Price from Today;  BBC Women Emma Barnett, Jane Garvey, Fi Glover all apparently relaxed and sufficiently remunerated to be seen in the same room as the DG. Someone who looked (from memory) like Sir David Clementi lurking at the bar until the music got too loud. 

On stage, Jan Ravens debuted her all-new 'Zoe Ball' with a live set from Dead Ringers. 

BBC Sounds early feedback - no-one likes the superimposition of "You're Listening To BBC Sounds" every ten minutes on the playlists.

Knees up

I wonder how much Kerris Bright, Chief Customer Officer, found for the party. Mustard Catering, promising "the finest contemporary London food", part of the K P Kofler group provided the nibbles at the Tate Modern for the launch of BBC Sounds. See if you can spot your chums with Nile Rodgers....

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Open-top bus

The BBC's banking boys are beginning to go on tour celebrating success with their new package of terms and conditions.

The double act of Nigel Lewis, Head of Employee Relations and Policy, and Phil Thomas, Industrial Relations lead, followed a path to Auntie nearly three years ago from the TSB and Lloyds.

Neither feature in the list of those paid over £150k a year.

Now you can find out how they did it. Nigel explained all at a labour relations conference hosted by Evershed Sutherland this month. Delegates were enlightened on 'doing things differently' and 'learning from mistakes' for a mere £479 plus VAT. Expect more appearances soon.

Party

Tonight's big gig: The official launch party for BBC Sounds at Tate Modern.

No Purnell or Shennan at the wheels of steel, but Radio 1's Annie Mac. Perfomers are Mabel (Neneh Cherry's daughter) signed to Universal, and Tom Grennan, signed to Sony - both spookily currently in the Radio 1 A playlist. Other artistes: Craig David, signed to Sony and Nile Rodgers, recently signed to Universal.

Bye PFI

En passant, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced an end to PFIs - both PFI 1 (conceived under John Major, force fed by Gordon Brown) and PFI 2 (the George Osborne Tesla). This infrastructure-spending model was a con to keep big projects out of the Government's borrowing requirements. Banks, developers and construction firms did deals to create shiny new buildings, hospitals, schools, roads and more on a monstrous hire-purchase variant, with typical 30-year commitments from the users. Thus we have £11.4bn-worth of new hospitals at a total cost of close to £80bn.

It's not long now until the early versions of this sale and lease-back deal come to the end of their 30 years. The BBC, deliberately never allowed to borrow more that £200m, was nudged into PFI-variants by Labour. Thus MediaCity in Salford, Pacific Quay in Glasgow, and 'new' Broadcasting House. 

Broadcasting House was funded through a bond - a £813m 30-year fixed-rate deal, at just over 5% return for investors – the largest single property-backed bond ever in Europe at the time. It matures in 2033, which doesn't seem quite so far away now. The BBC pays out for both rent and facilities management until then - ask 'em how much they've spent so far.  The freehold ? That reverts to the BBC in 2153, so there's a few more leases to sort out until then. 

Keep politics out of it

Some good weekend figures for BBC1. Saturday's Strictly averaged 9.8m in the overnights, down on the equivalent Halloween show last year, but still an astonishing 49.3% share of the available audience (maybe more of us went 'out' this year ?).

XFactor dipped below 4m - between by plaster-cast warhorse Casualty at 4.6m.

Dr Who averaged 6.43m. It will be interesting to see if Mr Chibnall's one-dimensional Trump substitute, played by Sex and The City's Mr Big, Chris Noth, ruffles sensitivities in the United States. Which was more testing in the imagination area - giant spiders dying 'cos they're out of breath, or an American building a giant hotel over a dodgy landfilled-mine in the centre of Sheffield ?

Way beyond

As the BBC whips us up into a frenzy ahead of Tuesday's game-changing arrival of the already-arrived BBC Sounds app, James Purnell, Director of Radio and Education, and Bob Shennan, Director of Radio and Music, have been talking to The Guardian.

"Until recently the BBC was banned from creating online-only podcasts for competition reasons, meaning it is now making up for lost time, Shennan says. To this end a  'few million pounds' a year will be given to commission podcasts purely for an online audience."

Much publicity was accrued from the announcement of a Today podcast, called "Beyond Today", a daily 20 minutes to be released at 5pm weekdays, on a single news topic. It will be presented by Tina Daheley, 39, who will presumably thus hold on to her £150k salary, newly arrived in the last financial year, and Matthew Price, 46, who will surely make the breakthrough this year, if only in terms of the BBC's new transparency and commitment to equal pay.

The editor is John Shields, a long-serving Assistant Editor of Today (not as cheap as asking a production assistant to sort out the podcast), who had the idea six months when studying as a Knight Wallace Fellow of the University of Michigan, on the outskirts of Detroit. John was cogitating on "mitigating the loss of public trust in broadcast media". John says the podcast is being produced with "a brilliant bunch of colleagues"; Matthew Price says there's "a hugely talented team of producers". I've found at least five ranging from senior journalist to producer/researcher, proudly tweeting they're on board. You can hear them all being very demotic and under-34 in the trailer. I'm guessing there's £750k a year going into this, minimum.

No pressure, then, from inside or outside.  BBC colleagues working on, say, PM's budget coverage, or Newsbeat's budget coverage, or 5Live's budget coverage, or the Business Unit's budget coverage, etc etc, will be looking for the differences at 5pm.

Contra check

And so, in a Viennesse waltz with all the finesse of Seann Walsh and Marouanne Fellaini put together, Radio 2's senior strategists finally get what they wanted in the first place - a woman into drivetime, and some ethnicity into the regular weekday schedule.

Sara Cox, beaten by Zoe Ball for Breakfast, gets Simon Mayo's old gig, after life was made so uncomfortable for him that he created his own exit strategy; Trevor Nelson gets Sara Cox's late night slot, Monday to Thursday at 10pm. I'm afraid that's not as a result of any particular musical strategy, which is a shame for a music station. 

Repeat to fade....

Here's a novel approach to saving money at the BBC: endless repeats. 

The Church Times reports that "Something Understood", Radio 4's weekly audio essay on spiritual themes, incorporating music, readings and more, will have no new editions made from April 2019, yet continue in its slot indefinitely. It currently brackets the Sunday schedule, going out at 6.00am and 11.30pm. The most regular presenter is Sir Mark Tully, but others include BBC News' Official Bard, Fergal Keane. 

A BBC spokeswoman said “We’ve broadcast Something Understood for nearly 24 years, and we know the decision to no longer make this programme will disappoint our audience; but we have a full and rich back catalogue of the programme, and we propose to fill the schedule with the best of the archive for the foreseeable future.

“We are putting into action our plans to increase the ambition of religious programmes, and the critically acclaimed Morality in the 21st Century is an example of this, plus series like Moral Maze and Sunday continue to explore religious and ethical questions in depth.”

Something Understood was commissioned under Radio 4 Controller Michael Green back in 1995; current decisions on the life or death of religious output are made by James Purnell, Director of Radio & Education. 

We fully expect the logic of endless repeats from a rich back catalogue to be taken up elsewhere in 'religious' output. Songs of Praise has been going for 57 years. 

A reasonable silhouette

The BBC's Economics Editor, Kamal Ahmed, about to be the BBC's Editorial Director, finds time away from economics, promoting his autobiography, and reviewing the papers on the Marr show, to answer fashion questions from a blogger... 

Have you always worn suits or is it something you started doing for television?
I’ve always worn them. I turned up on my first day of work in a three-piece-suit. It was a small local paper just outside Glasgow.

You wore them as a child?
Actually, no. I’m not quite JACOB REES-MOGG. I don’t know what it was. I’ve always liked nice clothes and then suddenly I had a tiny bit of money, I mean tiny, but I would genuinely save up my money to buy nice suits. I would forecast my suits over a number of years and figure out when I could buy the next one. I was really into NICOLE FARHI and her suits were expensive!

You are rather tall.
I am.

How tall are you if you don’t mind me asking?
Six foot four.

Do you dress to emphasise your height?
I'm lucky that I'm slim rather than tall – I have a reasonable silhouette. I think that quite trim cuts suit me because of my shape, I am aware of that and I try and dress accordingly. I don’t look great in baggy clothes. I buy most things, T-shirts for example, in small which is quite unusual; shop assistants always tell me I’ll never fit a small.

On the weekends are you still in suits or do you dress more casually?
Oh no. I dress more casually, and I really do enjoy wearing more casual clothes. I shop a bit at ACNE. I go to DOVER STREET MARKET, MARGARET HOWELL, SUNSPEL. I quite like TOAST. I try to avoid that awkward look which is the middle-aged man in jeans and a white shirt on the weekend.

That is very sensible of you.
It’s a bad look!

Left and right

There's a clear mismatch between the outcome of the first Today Programme Student Journalism Awards, and recent work by Alan Davey and others on "Reflecting the Socio-Economic Diversity of the UK within the BBC Workforce".

The Davey report notes as a weakness "Recruitment success rate still shows heavy
weighting in favour of Russell Group candidates".

Winner of Today's big prize, joining the BBC as a News Trainee, is Jack Hunter (Brighton Hove & Sussex VI College and Wadham College, Oxford). Jack has already managed to secure work experience at the Eastbourne Herald, Johnston Press, the i, the Mail on Sunday, the Press Association, Reuters and the Sunday Times.

Student critic of the year is Laura Hackett (Brasenose, Oxford). Visual journalist is Peter Flude (Falmouth). Broadcaster is Nikola Bartosova (Salford).

One fully-formed story

Meanwhile, in commercial radio, Ofcom continues to demonstrate all the steely resolve of their fellow regulators ORR, Ofgem, the FCA etc etc.

In a post entitled "Localness guidelines", we learn that they're being relaxed, so that commercial groups can, if they want (and they do) syndicate breakfast shows across swathes of the UK. This, presumably is in response to threatening mobs of listeners across Cornwall chanting "What do we want ? Breakfast shows from Southampton !".

Don't worry though - there's an Ofcom quota to keep your breakfast news REALLY local.

"We would always expect each enhanced daytime bulletin to feature more than simply headlines, and to include at the very least one fully-formed local news story, and normally more than this, alongside national stories. In cases where stations are sharing their local hours within an approved area (see notes on co-location and programme sharing, below), and are broadcasting the same news bulletin across more than one licensed area, at least one of the local stories in each bulletin needs to be directly relevant to listeners in each of the licensed areas. "

Artistic

Whilst I disagree with most of the analysis of BBC output in Ofcom's first performance review, it does offer one or two important statistics.

"BBC Three is aimed at 16-34 year-olds and moved from being a scheduled channel to an online service in 2016. But it does not yet appear to have succeeded in attracting a significant proportion of young viewers; only 8% of young people watch it each week. Our qualitative research found that some viewers of BBC Three, including young people, said they watched BBC Three less, or not at all, following its move online, and some expressed regret at this move."

 "There were 17 hours of new UK arts and classical music programming shown on BBC One at peak time in 2017." (There's a total of 1642 hours and 30 minutes in peak-time in a 365-day year, by Ofcom's definition.)

One problem here is that the "Arts" on BBC1 is owned by Alan Yentob. He's 71. This year, he's brought us new programmes about David Hockney, 81, Tracey Emin, 55, Cary Grant (dead), George Benjamin, 58, Rose Wylie, 84, Tacita Dean, 53, Orhan Pamuk, 66 and Rupert Everett, 59. No sign of big artistic breakthroughs in the 16-34 age group there. The films are all over an hour, presumably to attracted a better tariff, yet,  because they're variable length, get slotted at the end of the night.

When ITV's South Bank Show was in its pomp in the late 70s and 80s, it snuck into weekend prime. At the start, presenter Melvyn Bragg was 38 and didn't talk with a whistle. There were features on Paul McCartney, Talking Heads, Rough Trade Records, Peter Gabriel, The Smiths and myriad more  - all when they were under 40.  Pop artists on BBC1 doing 'specials' now get sofa conversations with Graham Norton (Adele), Nick Grimshaw (Harry Styles), Fearne Cotton (Sam Smith) and Davina McCall (Ariana Grande) leading into performances of tracks from new albums and greatest hits.

Maybe Editor Al should have a discussion with Presenter Al. Or somebody should see the gap here and ride majestically into it.

Meanwhile, in the 5pm to 7pm slots on BBC1 and BBC2, the alternatives presented to 'yoof' returning to the family fold, kicking off their Reeboks for slippers, are cardigan quizzes, antiques shows, and news. This is where braver controllers used to experiment with popular culture. This is where the current Content team seems really risk averse.

Another way to get more artsy stuff into peaktime would be to try some day-time commissions that might be worth a summer evening repeat. Alternatives, say, to the cheap "24 hour" documentaries on police, doctors, nurses, bailiffs, pest controllers etc. What about "24 hours" backstage at The Royal Albert Hall, or Glastonbury, or the O2, or on the set of Eastenders, or The Assembly Rooms ?  See me for more.

 

Fustian

The frustrated former broadcasting executives of Ofcom have been eating at the pompous tree again, with their first annual report on the BBC's performance.

This pseudo-scientific exercise pretends to analyse in detail the BBC's output. It's long enough - 55 pages, with Appendix 1 at 107, and Appendix 2 at 17; 1422 pages in just one set of data tables. It talks a lot about its "Key Evidence Base", and how it is interested in trends. Yet one of the pivotal pieces of work is an opinion poll, pretentiously named the "Ofcom Performance Tracker." 

OK, it's an opinion poll of 4,000 people. Some questioned face-to-face and some online - either way, the contributors would be knackered by it. The pomposity permeates the way the questions are framed. 

 "On a scale of 1-10, where 1 means not at all important and 10 means extremely important, how important, if at all, do you think it is that BBC television... takes risks and provides TV programmes and content that is new and innovative ?"

" How strongly do you agree with the following statement, using a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means not at all agree, and 10 means agree completely?  - BBC One offers me something that other television and video providers do not"

It's not yet a Tracker, 'cos this is the first iteration. It's not rooted in the real world, where questions would be direct and honest. "Given the BBC's declining income, would you rather they spent money on plays or football ?". And it's no way to ride shotgun on a creative organisation. Imagine if this country was governed through the results of opinion polls. Elsewhere we learn that the "Ofcom Representation and Portrayal Review: qualitative research" involved just 312 people.

(Of course, there are insights from more traditional counting in the report. No arts or religious programming made BBC1's peaktime schedule during the year. I'll post separately about that.)

Is there a link between this 'evidence base' and Ofcom's four strictures to the BBC ? Were crowds heard chanting "What do we want ? Transparency in BBC commercial operations ! When do we want it ? Now !". I think not.

Was there a mob baying "Maintain your commitment to original UK programmes !"  Were they asked if they'd like a few US box sets ?  Isn't the evidence of the Netflix tsunami that the British viewing public quite likes the odd American blockbuster ? Ask your 4,000 if they'd like a modern equivalent of Kojak, Dynasty, Dallas, MASH or Taxi back, and Ofcom would get an answer it didn't like

Have people been seen on the streets with banners demanding Auntie "continues to improve how it represents and portrays the whole of UK society" ?  Have the 312 set up a Facebook group ?

The fourth stricture - do more to engage with younger audiences - has been obvious to all broadcasters, commercial and psb, for a decade. Ofcom would be more helpful if its former broadcasters said how....

Tony Joe White

"Swamp Fox" Tony Joe White has died, aged 75. A singer-songwriter with a catalogue that includes Rainy Night In Georgia, Polk Salad Annie, Steamy Windows, Willie and Laura Mae Jones, Soul Francisco and I've Got A Thing About You Baby is worth re-discovering.

He was born, the youngest of seven, to a cotton farmer in Goodwill, a crossroads near the small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana; mother was part-Cherokee. "Our nearest neighbor was a mile away. The rest was cotton farms and rivers and swamp." The family was poor, and sometimes they made a meal out of a wild, turnip-green-like vegetable they called polk, with a taste a bit like spinach. Entertainment was home-made: "Every day somebody would grab a guitar and cut into a song."

At 15, his brother brought home a record by Lightnin' Hopkins, and taught Tony some chords. Tony dropped his high school flirtation with baseball. He stayed with one of his five sisters in Marietta, Georgia, working as a dump-truck driver for the highway department - where the germ of "Rainy

Night" developed. At 19, he headed to Texas and the beach areas around Corpus Christi. "I was really into it. I mean barefoot all the time and brown and fishing out on Padre Island. And playing in the clubs at night, six nights a week. I thought, “Man, this is already it.”.  Polk Salad Annie and Rainy Night In Georgia were completed - more story songs came after Bobbie Gentry released Ode to Billie Joe in 1967.

In the same year, Tony took a week off from gigging for a drive to Nashville, with his portfolio of songs - he spurned Memphis along the way, only because he was meeting his brother in the country capital. And eventually, he found Bob Beckham, of Monument Records - probably the only blues-friendly producer in town at the time.

I've had Tony Joe, an album on Monument produced by Billy Swan, since it came out in 1970. Here's a typical story song from it.

Disgrace

Damian and Da Boys of the DCMS Select Committee have given the BBC a good kicking over both equal pay and the sorry saga of Personal Service Companies. Here are some highlights from their 38-page report.

"The BBC must act urgently to restore confidence in its grievance processes. In order to do this, the corporation must commit to upholding the independence of the process, by placing independent managers in charge of grievances. They should act swiftly to speed up the complaints process by appointing full-time hearing managers. The BBC should state publicly how many grievance cases are still awaiting resolution, and how many of these are claims regarding a lack of equal pay, rather than waiting for FOI requests or Committee inquiries. The BBC should also commit to have completed the
grievance process for all existing cases, including making any financial settlements that may be owed, within the next six months."

"The imposition of personal service companies falls short of the standards that we expect from any responsible employer and especially from the BBC. The corporation should be held to high standards due to its prominence in public life and its public funding. Yet the BBC’s 2007–2012 policy of engaging presenters via PSCs has caused “life-altering” financial and emotional consequences for many presenters. The imposition was for purposes that suited the BBC, but not necessarily the interests of its employees. As a direct result of the corporation’s actions, many presenters are facing
liabilities of hundreds of thousands of pounds in unpaid income tax and national insurance contributions. We have seen strong evidence that the BBC made presenters feel that a PSC was a mandatory condition of work. This is a disgrace."

Remember, this move to PSCs was a decision that was made by no-one in particular, according to the BBC's own search of its records, and never reached the Board.

"The BBC has failed to act on both equal pay and PSCs, launching remedial measures only after receiving both media and public pressure. The corporation has continually relied on individuals who work for them to come forward and bring these issues to their attention. In the future the BBC must operate proactively, rather than waiting for media pressure to push them into action. The BBC must improve internal communications and ensure that its HR service is sufficiently well-resourced that it is available to everyone, so that it can help presenters to raise these kinds of issues."

Miscellany

Today listening remains 'off the top', with 6.8m weekly reach between June and September. It's down 866,000 since Sarah Sands took the editor's chair. Radio 4 as a whole is down 5.1% year on year. At Radio 5Live, Breakfast can claim something of a recovery from the last quarter, and stability year on year.  The station is down 0.7%. 

Radio 3 is down 1.5%. 

TalkRADIO, with added Eamonn Holmes, is up 2%, but hardly soaring away, with weekly reach at 261k. Virgin Radio, awaiting Chris Evans, is down 25% year on year, at 414k. 

Radio X nationally is up 12.7%, at 1.7m. Jazz FM, transferring to new ownership, is up 15%, at 657k. 

Uniting the nation

The cumulative reach for BBC Local Radio in England dropped below 6m in the latest quarterly listening figures. It was down 4.8% year on year, at 5.9m - that compares with 7m in the same quarter in 2013, and 7m in 2008. A saviour is awaited.

Radio Cymru is down 4%, at 119,000 listeners a week. Radio Wales is down 12%, at 317k.  Radio Scotland is down 2%, at 854k. Radio Ulster is down 6%, at 539k.

Go figure

Radio 2's audience is down, year-on-year, in the latest RAJAR figures. Weekly reach for June to September was 14.64m, compared with 15.36m in 2017. The Chris Evans Breakfast Show (Chris announced his departure from the network in September) was down to 8.82m, compared with 9.35m last year.

The figures for Drivetime are not officially published, but those who might have seen them say they were down to 5.5m, from 5.8m last year.

At Radio 1, the station as a whole was marginally down, at 9.6m. The Grimshaw/Greg James Breakfast added a healthy 465,000 year on year.

At LBC, where Eddie Mair started in September, the weekly reach is more or less unchanged year on year at just over 2m.

Stat fest

BBC Radio & Education boss James Purnell has some facts and figures that might quiet the podcast doubters.

In September, there were nearly 26.5 million downloads of BBC podcasts in the UK. In August 2015, when the BBC first started counting, there were some 16.5m downloads. The September figure breaks down in 14.6m for Radio 4, 4.7m for Radio 5Live, and 750,000 for Radio 1. There's no granularity offered on the remaining 6m.

Mr Purnell says 6 million of us listen to podcasts every week - 11% of the population (RAJAR's last published figure, from summer, was 6.5m and 12%). Is there more to come from this goldrush ? USA statistics suggest that podcasts there reach 26% of the population every month.

It's a serious business, and James is taking it seriously. But I suspect that now is time for some financial transparency. The BBC breaks down how much it spends on broadcasting by network. If BBC podcasts are reaching, say, 3 to 4 million people a week, that's more than the reach of Radio 3 or any of the digital-only networks. Licence-fee-payers, listeners and BBC staff should be told how much is being spent on podcasting.

James has previously called for a proper podcasting chart. It's clear the BBC could produce one of its own. I think a regular BBC Top Ten would be a useful addition to transparency.

Canal news

Catherine Nixey, who I've quoted before on the Mayo/Whiley mess, offers some more sharp thoughts on Radio Two in The Times.

"Whiley was fine where she was. Not thrilling, but if you wanted to spend your evenings listening to a slightly classier version of “Now That’s What I Call Indie”, she was there. And Mayo was great: relaxed, easy, likeable. Together, however, they were excruciating. A much better schedule tweak would have been to ditch the baffling Vine and bump Vanessa Feltz up from the 5am slot, or perhaps poach the superb Emma Barnett from Radio 5 Live.

"Or to find new female presenters altogether. In one interview, Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music, implied that he’d like more women, but they hadn’t had the necessary airtime to be given the big jobs. There just aren’t, this argument runs, enough women in the pipeline — as if Radio 2 were the lower reaches of an alimentary canal only digesting the presenters that Radio 1 consumed 20 years ago. This opinion is lazy, self-exculpatory and a view not unrelated to the lower reaches of the canal itself."

Chris Evans, Steve Wright, Simon Mayo, Jo Whiley, Sara Cox, Mark Radcliffe, Zoe Ball, Tony Blackburn, Johnnnie Walker, Gary Davies and Trevor Nelson all still have a berth at Radio 2, with Radio 1 in their CVs.

Bob and Lewis have been nurturing women in odd bits of the schedule for some time - Liza Tarbuck, Cerys Matthews, Melanie Sykes, Claudia Winkleman, Anneka Rice, Ana Matronic, Fearne Cotton, and more. If Bob and Lewis are still looking for females from Radio 1 in the 90s, they might track down Jakki Brambles, Emma Freud, Mary Anne Hobbs or Lisa I'Anson,

Rumble

Noises of disquiet from well-connected Radio 4 contributors about BBC Sounds, who clearly have their own ideas about where the money's coming from...

BBC Sounds is James Purnell’s gift to the nation that is sucking money out of an already cash anaemic @BBCRadio4. https://t.co/H8RWeKfIuI

— Misha Glenny (@MishaGlenny) October 23, 2018

Overstrung

There's still considerable twitchiness at Wogan House, as the dissolution of Mayo and Whiley will impact in unpredictable ways on the rest of the evening schedule.

Whiley has been given 7-9pm Monday to Thursday, to incorporate live performances. All other things being equal, this squeezes the current 8pm to 10pm line-up, which features what remains of the network's proud tradition of specialist music. Talent currently occupying those slots includes Bob Harris (twice) on country music, Jamie Cullum, Jools Holland, Cerys Matthews, Mark Radcliffe (folk) and Tony Blackburn (oldies/soul). 8pm to 10pm is where the station also carries documentaries and specials, in order to fulfil other quotas.

Putting more women at the mike was one driver in the current shake-up, but Carnie and Shennan also have to contribute to BBC-wide savings. Simon Mayo was on £340k and Jo Whiley on £170k before their arranged radio marriage. Some of Simon's salary came (and will still come) from his Radio 5Live film show with Mark Kermode. You might guess that, if you were evening things up, Mayo and Whiley might have been promised £250k each - quite a cut for Simon. And a pointer to the obvious - there'll be a single, female presenter for Drivetime from January. On less than £340k.

Moving on

Adrian Van Klaveren, 57, (Bristol Grammar and St John's College, Oxford) is reported to be moving on from the BBC, after starting out as a News trainee back in 1983. As Controller of Radio 5Live from 2008 to 2012, he oversaw the lift and shift of the network from W12 to Salford, without, apparently, moving from own home base in Hampshire. In December 2010, the station hit a peak audience of 7.1m listeners a week.

Always helpful, he was put in to 'mind' Newsnight at senior level in the wake of the Savile-non-broadcast, but sadly was in place when another team fumbled a story about Lord McAlpine. He was moved to a job supervising WW1 commemorations and specials, but was soon back in BBC News as 'Head of Strategic Change'; most recently his attention was turned to the World Service 2020 Programme, making sure new Foreign Office money was spent as fast as it came in.

Bulldog spirit

Norwegian investor/new media expert/raider/blowhard (strike out those which do not apply) Christen Ager-Hansseon is having quite a morning on Twitter, after upping his Custos Group stake in Johnston Press to 25.5%. This, he believes, gives him the ability to block any sale which may seek to break up the company into parts.

The board of Johnston Press are Arrogant, Ignorant and Incompetent mixed with greed and selfishness. Not a pretty cocktail of personalty traits for a board that need to define a clear strategy and an equity story fit for the digital age. Textbook case of shareh.-value destruction pic.twitter.com/bFpLIObDmc

— Christen Ager-Hanssen (@agerhanssen) October 22, 2018

Churchill said “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip” Bon Voyage to the board of Johnston Press.

— Christen Ager-Hanssen (@agerhanssen) October 22, 2018

Custos is of the opinion that as major shareholder we have a responsibility to be active and vocal and to fight this sort of mismanagement, breach of fiduciary duty and the culture of greed and self-interest

— Christen Ager-Hanssen (@agerhanssen) October 22, 2018

Churchill said :The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. I call it the art of seeing the unseen

— Christen Ager-Hanssen (@agerhanssen) October 22, 2018

Mayo's awayo

This Thursday sees the latest radio listening figures made public, covering June to September. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the timing of today's announcement from Simon Mayo, that he's leaving Radio 2 at the end of the year - but hacks will re-double their efforts to extract results for the Jo and Simon drivetime show from within the overall ratings.

Agglomerated from Simon's tweets from this morning: "Radio 2 has been a wonderful place for me-my happiest radio I think. Our listeners are really quite extraordinary. One other thing. Maybe it needs to be said, maybe not but so there is no room for argument I’ll be clear. I’ve loved working with the exceptional Jo Whiley and when the show was ‘reconfigured’ she was my first and only choice. Some of the abuse she has had here has been appalling. Support for a show is one thing, assaulting the dignity of a warm-hearted and loyal friend is another. So by all means discuss what’s happening here, but let’s keep some civility. Thank you. Here endeth the lesson. And (one very final thing), as anyone who has worked here will attest, the producers and APs are a class apart. Brilliant production teams make our jobs a joy. Thanks to each and every one. Onwards.”

It wasn't Whiley that got to Mr Mayo; it was the nonsense that his show needed re-invention in the first place. The double-edged sword that required 50% speech in daytime, starting in 2010, had worked well for Mayo and his team.

But Bob Shennan and Lewis Carnie were under immense pressure to deliver more women to the microphone in the weekday schedule; decided not to budge Bruce, Vine or Wright, and picked a successful drivetime show apart for quota delivery.

The move was telegraphed to Simon (they'd have preferred him to 'retire', but he hung on to prepare a new portfolio of writing and broadcasting) and now Shennan and Carnie have new problems. Whilst the gender issue has been eased by the impending arrival of Zoe Ball at Breakfast, they've decided to move Jo Whiley back to her muso-slot of 7-9pm, leaving drive as a clean sheet in the New Year. The issue of women in the listings isn't over, which must give Sara Cox a good chance.

Boy racers

What do Freddie Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness, new presenters of Top Gear, have in common ? Neither have any previous record of motoring journalism, and both have used the services of lawyer Nick Freeman, nicknamed Mr Loophole.

Freddie was photographed doing 87mph in a 50 mph temporary limit on the M6 (in someone else's car) back in 2008, but the case was dismissed. Paddy's Landrover was caught doing 53mph in a 40mph zone in Chorlton in 2016; the case was dismissed.

Might make a good feature for their first edition ?

Off the top

Simon Cowell may have re-invented his judges, but the pub-singers who make up the bulk of the X-Factor's talent roster seem to be losing their appeal. Last night's two hour long show, the first 'live' show of the series, was watched by an average of 4.4m. There was some side competition from Liverpool match and F1 qualifying, but the figure was down 0.8m on last year's equivalent.

Strictly was also down, at 9.9m (from last year's equivalent of 10.3m).

Rock news

imagine... returns this Tuesday night with a 1hr 20m special on artist Tracey Emin. The trailers centre on her home town of Margate, but presenter Alan Yentob does manage a trip to Tracey's home above Le Lavandou on the Cote D'Azur.





imagine... so far has escaped the ignominy of being put out to tender by Richard Dawkins. For how long ?

Right Charlie

Charlie Sloth's departure from Radio 1 has come slightly more quickly than perhaps anticipated.

We have agreed with Charlie Sloth that he will not be presenting any further editions of ‘The 8th’ and ‘The Rap Show’ for Radio 1 and 1Xtra. New presenters will be announced for both shows in coming weeks.

— Radio 1 Press Office (@BBCRadio1PR) October 20, 2018

It may have something to do with this stage invasion at the Arias, when young Charlie jumped to the mike after losing out to Edith Bowman in the Specialist Music category. Sloth's Saturday show was one of five nominations, but didn't make the top three.

Charlie Sloth with a strange career move, Kanye style. pic.twitter.com/gDZAUYnoad

— Simon Clancy (@SiClancy) October 18, 2018

Soooo the Arias 😬... it was supposed to be a bit of bants with me jumping on stage, starting with me saying “ok ima let you finish” 🤷‍♂ it wasn’t directed at Edith, i love Edith and like I said so does my Mum ❤ I’ve apologised to Edith privately, I'm sorry to anyone I upset.

— Charlie Sloth (@CharlieSloth) October 20, 2018

Low gear

Always good to see a fresh BBC News suit paraded to defend the largely indefensible on Newswatch. This weekend we welcome Toby Castle, Deputy News Editor.

Toby (Leeds Grammar and Dundee) came from ITN in the wake of Jonathan "Chopper" Munro. He likes cycling up hills, hence the homage-to-Bradley sideburns.

Over 5 minutes of Newswatch (starting at 4.57), Toby doesn't give an inch on a fortnight's bilious discharge of Royal 'news'. Indeed, he highlights the need to chase 'reaction' to the news of a Royal pregnancy as a reason for the extended coverage.

McWhoopsie

Not a happy evening in the newsroom of BBC Scotland...

Quality or quantity ?

Hello again. It's the BBC's critical friend here.

David Dinsmore, COO of News UK, has had another pop at the BBC's online empire. “The BBC has become Britain’s largest publisher and competes directly with all of the news publishing industry. They are chasing online traffic by publishing news content which bears no resemblance to the BBC’s charter commitments, and they are challenging subscription websites by offering commentary, analysis and long-form journalism. By offering all of this for free, they are reducing the leverage of commercial publishers to challenge the platforms to offer a fair value for our content.”

“I am not criticising the BBC for the provision of high-quality, impartial news online. That is its remit and the UK should be proud. I am challenging whether it should be for BBC News online to tell me if I should take up tai chi or Zumba and whether I may need to take a break from Netflix."

Today, from the front page of BBC News online in the UK.

Bralet boom and why the underwire is under fire.

"I went through the menopause at 11"

"I travelled 4,000 miles to find my dad"

"It's the Earth's third
 biggest fruit"

Again with feeling

And now, another announcement you heard earlier. In 2016, the DCMS under John Whittingdale conceived the Contestable Fund, nicking money from the Charter/Licence fee deal, to subsidise tv programmes, largely aimed at children. In 2017, Karen Bradley re-announced it. Yesterday Jeremy Wright re-announced it, this time divided into £57m for tv content and £3m for radio. Producers can bid for up to 50% of their costs. The fund runs for three years at £20m a year.

Radio Wales cost £20.5m a year. 

Change at Leeds

A pivotal year for the UK radio industry was marked at the Aria Awards in Leeds, with podcasts winning in four categories (outside those specifically aimed at podcasts). If anyone can make a podcast, then anyone can win....

Best Fictional Storytelling: Double Bubble, a five-part 'micro-drama' from the Prison Radio Association, written by and starring former inmate Carl Cattermole, on the spiral of debt started by loan sharks.

Best Sports Show: Mo-Joe - An 18 week Marathon Training Diary, from 7 Digital, available on Audible. Presenter George Lamb is helped by Sir Mo Farah and YouTuber Joe Wicks.

Best Specialist Music Show: Soundtracking with Edith Bowman. A weekly podcast that has been running for two years, featuring writers, actors, directors and composers on film music.

Funniest Show: Fortunately, with Fi Glover and Jane Garvey. Recorded drinking posh coffee inside and outside Broadcasting House, now with a single guest each week. From the Radio 4 'digital' stable. 66 episodes currently available.

Griefcast won the Best Podcast. Cariad Lloyd talks to a range of people, many of them comedians, talking about death and grief. Running since 2016, It's already won Podcast of the Year, and two other categories, in the British Podcast Awards.

You, Me and The Big C, featuring the late Rachael Bland, from 5Live, won Best New Show/Podcast. There are currently 20 episodes available.

Gaw blimey, guv !

Yet another report from the BBC on culture and career progression, this one looking at whether or not enough working-class people get a chance. The figures (based on 60% of existing staff being honest about declaring their own background) aren't bad, but committees like this never miss a chance for self-flagellation.

(By the way, that should read "Creative Industries" in the fourth column. A working-class proof reader might have picked that one up; otherwise the BBC might consider investing in a Spellchecking programme, widely available on most computers.)

Among perceived weaknesses it says "Recruitment success rate still shows heavy weighting in favour of Russell Group candidates."  Let's have the figures, eh ?

A sheep-dip of managers is always a prime requisite of such reports:

"Cultural awareness training should be made compulsory for all team managers alongside a pan-BBC Inclusive Culture campaign. This should be rolled out in the next 12-months on top of the Unconscious Bias training which has already been mandated. The training should include understanding of the richness of the socio-economic diversity of the UK.

And whatever class you are, expect a hard time from the HR police should you seek improvement as a manager:

"For all Team Managers applying for new roles, we expect applicants to provide evidence of their contribution to championing diversity and inclusion and proof of impact/outcomes. This will include inclusion index scores and diversity and inclusion objectives. BBC values to be a heavily weighted part of any interview questions"

Knees up

One of the goodies on offer to early Tortoise subscribers is an invitation (or two) to a launch party in Spring 2019. By my calculation, they've already committed to 930 tickets. We've got to be talking The Grand Temple at Freemasons' Hall, the Fountain Court at Somerset House, or The Indigo at the O2. And a decent band or two, surely.

Periphrastic

Never use one word when two will do...

The BBC needs an HR Specialist - Contingent Workforce.

"The Contingent Workforce team is an integral part of the overall Resourcing and Talent function, providing specialist resourcing & talent services to the BBC. The team work closely with the Production areas within the BBC to ensure all our freelance engagements are compliant with tax and employment legislation whilst also providing an excellent service to the freelancers themselves. To ensure that we are working as efficiently as possible and providing the best service to our freelancers whilst remaining compliant in line with tax and employment law principles, we have expanded the Contingent Workforce team by combining our transactional and advisory teams. The new team is responsible for providing a seamless, end to end service on all our Contingent Workforce engagements."

Particulars

It's a week since Johnston Press put up the 'For Sale' sign, and there's no obvious indications of a rush to submit offers. Meanwhile the Stock Market has made some sort of judgement - share price is down from 3p to under 2p, with market capitalisation at under £2m. For that, you acquire £220m of bond debt, a pension fund defict of £40m and some very anxious and directionless hacks.

Angels

The major investors in Tortoise Media have been revealed.

David Thomson, aka Lord Thomson of Fleet, is Canada's richest man, the reluctant public face of an empire including Thomson Reuters, Woodbridge, the Thomson family investment company, and  The Globe and Mail Inc. He's reported to have several homes in London, including one in Holland Park; his two most recent offspring are with one Severine Nackers, Head of Prints for Sotheby's Europe.

Saul Klein was a contemporary of James Harding at St Paul's School, and later at Cambridge University. He started off as a salesman at the Telegraph Group, but soon ramped through new media companies including Firefly, Microsoft, Skype, Lovefilm, Seed Camp, Index Ventures and more. He's an adviser to the DCMS.

Bernie and Genevieve Mensah have invested as individuals. Bernie is President of EMEA for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Genevieve is a churchwarden at Holy Trinity, Brompton, base of the Alpha courses; Bernie's on the board of Alpha International.

Solutions

The latest discussion paper on Over-75s Licence Fees, commissioned by the BBC from Gus O'Donnell and his team at the super-soaraway Frontier Economics, has no immediate answers for Auntie.

The problem is pressing; the deal forced on the BBC by Osborne and Whittingdale has already made the BBC cough up £250m to subsidise the bill for 2018/29, with the rest paid by the Department of Work and Pensions. Next financial year, the BBC contribution rises to £450m, before taking full responsibility for the future of the concession in 2020/21, when the total cost is estimated at £745m.

Maybe Auntie could invent a sort of media means test. If the over-75s can afford, say, a Sky subscription or Netflix account of their own, maybe they should pay a full licence fee, with a concessionary rate to less-media-rich elderly at £100 p.a. ? At the rate Netflix are moving, that should limit the damage...

Chris and Ceci

Two new signings at Tortoise, which now has a live website.

Christopher Cook, Newsnight's Policy Editor, is moving across, after close to five years at the BBC. Previously he'd been five years with the FT, as leader writer, education correspondent and comment editor.

At board level, Tortoise welcomes New-York-based Ceci Kurzman, with a background in pop music at Arista and Sony Records, and a hand in the career development of Shakira and Alicia Keys - and now a serial independent director - at Tortoise, Revlon, Cirque Du Soleil, Medecins Du Monde, Migreat and more.

Embed from Getty Images

Open wide

Whilst generally believing that Charlotte Moore, as Director of BBC Content, is a GOOD THING, I remain mystified as to why she is in thrall to Brendan O'Carroll, dressed as a woman or otherwise.

Normally I wouldn't invite the BBC Board to interfere in programme matters, but I have ordered thirteen of the devices shown left, and asked for them to be ready in the Council Chamber for the November meeting, where the first episode of For Facts Sake will be shown on screens around the room. All 29 minutes of it. No comfort breaks allowed.

Then all members will be asked to take a view on where this sort of show fits with the Annual Plan, particularly in response to Purpose 3: Making the most creative, high-quality and distinctive output.

Tortoise revealed

The business acumen behind Tortoise Media underestimated their Kickstarter market potential yesterday. They launched a bid for £75,000 - and, at time of writing, have reached 153% of their goal with thirty days still to go. 

A laid back video, with James (Harding), Katie (Vanneck-Smith)  Matthew (Barzun) explains the Tortoise concept, with the Harding family pet, Agatha, on hand - not yet in hibernation. £250 a year gets you access to the news site and app, with no ads. It will offer a minimum of five stories a day, on the themes of technology, natural resources, identity, finance and longevity. There'll be a digital quarterly of 'long reads'.

Members will have a chance to take part in daily ThinkIns, a sort of traditional morning news conference where hacks debate the day's agenda. Some of these meetings will be held around the country, with Tortoise on Tour.

Kickstarter subscribers get various goodies and discounted rates. We're promised the first proper stories in January 2019.  

New story

Another adornment of the Harding era is leaving BBC News. Fiona Campbell, nudged to the title of Digital Director just three months ago, where she's responsible for "digital and younger audiences strategy, innovation and partnerships", is moving to run documentaries for BBC Studios.

Fiona (Dominican College, Belfast and Jesus College, Cambridge) was brought into News by James Harding in 2014, from documentaries on BBC3, to run the whole of current affairs. Two years ago, she was moved to Controller Mobile and Online. She instigated "BBC Stories" - today's offerings include "Why my bones are crumbling at 27", "The weird world of a Kim Jong-un impersonator" and "Last call for Nevada's brothels ?" . The delivery of  'vertical video' came under her watch. She also completed a course at Columbia, as part of the Sulzberger Leadership Programme.

In a rather clothes-ist sidebar, new News boss Fran Unsworth's praise for Fiona's contribution concludes "We'll all miss those shiny trousers".

In control

The Londoner's Diary of The Evening Standard is well-connected when it comes to business journalism; editor Charlotte Edwards and Robert Peston are an item. So it's probably on the money with this...

Kamal Ahmed, the BBC economics editor, is preparing to take over as the corporation’s new editorial director. But is he having trouble letting go?

The Londoner hears that Ahmed has sat in on interviews of potential candidates for his old job, which he leaves on November 2.

Ahmed, who has also been business editor, will know that it is normally frowned upon for anyone in a position of influence or authority to be directly involved in appointing their own successor – because of the risk of maintaining objectivity about how the role should be done

Woof

Never mind dodgy soundtracks on nature films; the BBC has pulled a video round-up of highlights from the Principality Premiership, after rugby fans said the effects had been enhanced, at the very least.

Each score was greeted with a roar not heard since the heyday of super-amplified crowd noise of The Big Match in the late sixties. Some distinct phrases seemed to be on a loop. Rhodri will be around with the guidelines shortly....

Listen/watch these - same sound effect on each clip. pic.twitter.com/qz9Bi1EhSZ

— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) October 15, 2018

Priorities

The sounds of joyous whooping came along the A470 and A55 in Wales yesterday, with the news that Radio Wales should soon be available in FM/VHF on those routes - through the middle from Cardiff to Llandudno, and along the North Wales coast from Chester to Holyhead. This was tempered by growls from Radio 3 fans, with the news that the additional coverage was being achieved by switch-off of Alan Davey's offering at 30 transmitters. 

Apparently the change makes Radio Wales available on this analogue service to an additional 400k. We'll try to remember that change when tracking audience figures. The most recent weekly reach for the station - 367,000. 

An eye for it

"Our judging panel consists of highly respected, expert industry figures from some of the world’s most innovative and exciting companies. During the judging process, entries in 14 categories are rigorously scrutinised. This year’s categories include Hotel Bedroom & Suites Design; Residential Design Project Over £1 Million; Show Flats & Developments and Restaurant Design."

Yes, we'd all be privileged to attend the Society of British and International Design Awards 2018 at the Dorchester, on Friday 26th October.

And who's this amongst the judges ?  Why it's BBC Radio style-guru Lewis Carnie, most recently spotted re-arranging the furniture at Radio 2.  Lewis brings to judging his instinctive sensitivities about interior design, evident to all who visit the offices and production areas at Wogan House. And an artistic ability to pair the unlikely, bringing us the plangent counterpoint that is the Jo and Simon Drivetime Show.

Whoorah

Down a million or so, but still strong - the audience for the new Dr Who. Sunday's episode rated 7.1m, a 33% share, in the overnights. The biggest winner was Ms Who's new senior companion, Bradley Walsh, giving his distinctive Bradley-Walsh-in-space performance, who picked up a further 4.9m for The Chase Celebrity Special, the ITV alternative in the timeslot.

The Strictly-Will-Seann-Walk-Show got an average of 9.2m, a 40% share.

How publishing works

Kamal Ahmed starts as thought-leader at BBC News on 1st November; meanwhile he's still busily promoting his autobiography "The Life and Times of A Very British Man". (I'm told that copies of the hardback in the network newsroom are rather over-fingered at p166, in which our protagonist recalls a discussion of manhood measurements with a colleague, in the hearing of many other colleagues.)

There's little in the book about the journey to print. Kamal was working at The Telegraph group when James Harding, heading to the BBC from unemployment at The Times, asked him to write a note on how the BBC's business coverage might be improved. Spookily, Kamal was successfully interviewed within months to succeed Robert Peston as Business Editor. In November 2015, Kamal was a guest at the stag-party of James Purnell, then BBC Director of Strategy, in a restaurant in Paris. In 2017, Kamal was given three-months off by James Harding to write his autobiography, to be published by Bloomsbury, where travailleth Mrs Purnell, Alexis Kirschbaum. This year Alexis signed Kate Weinberg (Mrs James Harding) to write a novel for Bloomsbury, now expected in August 2019.

Countdown

The build-up to the official launch of BBC Sounds app, set for the end of this month, has started. Director of Radio and Education James Purnell has been briefing the i. “The proposition is going to be radio/music/podcasts – no-one else in the market will have that width. It will be encouraging people to listen without limits."

“It’s personalised enough that it’s suggesting the right stuff without being spooky [or] keeping people in their filter bubble.”

“The BBC has a particular focus at the moment on under-35s. Older audiences use us (the BBC as a whole) for 20-30 hours a week. Younger users… use us for eight hours a week. That’s been going down and we want to increase the value that they get from their licence fee.” Purnell says that for this generation “the market norm has been set as streaming” and that the BBC is a “challenger” brand, facing rivals with “deep pockets”.

“My job is…to make sure that radio is healthy in 10, 20, 50 and 100 years. The challenge for the BBC is can we modernise quickly enough so that we can serve young people just as well as we have previous generations.”

Wholesome

An extra 1.3m viewers returned to Strictly last night, to see pantomime villains Seann and Katya, dressed as tamely as children's tv presenters, tumble around the dance floor. The couple's routine was shamelessly scheduled as the last but one dance. More hurt than anyone - hacks at the Mail, where the website currently carries 12 separate stories on the couple. The writers seem piqued that the choreography didn't include an exchange of body fluids.

Average audience was 10.62m, a remarkable 51.2% share of the available audience.

Tim's time ?

Sky News says the BBC's Tim Davie is on a three-person shortlist to become the next boss of the Premier League.

He could expect to earn five or six times his current package if successful. Not much comes up when you search for Tim and 'football' - he's more often been seen in shorts at marathons, triathlons and Ironman events.  He was President of the JCR at Selwyn, Cambridge; he worked on male toiletries at Procter & Gamble; and oversaw the European launch of Pepsi Blue. At the BBC, he's been in charge of Radio, and acting DG before the move to Worldwide, now re-imagined as BBC Studios.

Some uncomfortable things on the CV: offering to close 6Music, backing Chris Evans to save Top Gear, shifting between the Global iPlayer, the BBC Store and boxes (either agile or non-strategic - take your pick). Excellent on diversity, outreach stuff and backing smaller digital ideas. 

Video killed

"You'll always find something to watch with Freesat. Unbelievably good subscription free TV". 

Except if you're a fan of music videos. With the closure of Heart TV and Capital TV, the satellite service is now down to just two channels. (Freeview offers five).

Eudemonia

Was the BBC wrong to reject the offer to cover the marriage of Eugenie and Jack ?

The three hours of This Morning on ITV averaged 2.97m viewers, a 46% share of the audience. The halfhour highlights show in the evening, nestling between two episodes of Coronation Street, was watched by 3.4m, a 19% share.

Bigness

It's occasionally good to be cautious about superlatives

Am really excited about this - the BBC's biggest classical season ever... Something only the Beeb could/would do, and am chuffed to be part of it https://t.co/TURG4OaQIg

— Suzy Klein (@suzyklein) October 12, 2018

In 1975 alone, Andre Previn's Music Night got 13 outings across BBC1 and BBC2. Over the same 12 months, the two channels also featured performances by the London Philharmonic (2), the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2, outside the Proms), the English Chamber Orchestra (2), the Halle, the Boston Pops, the Israeli Phil, the Vienna Phil, the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, and Aaron Copland conducting the LSO. I haven't counted Proms... 

How much is enough ?

The BBC News PR team have come out quite strongly in defence of last night's Newsnight.

Below is our statement on last night's @BBCNewsnight. It's not the job of BBC journalists to pretend that things aren't happening when they can see that they are. #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/Wwp18FXQ4x

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) October 12, 2018

"Tommy Robinson" first featured on Newsnight in a Paraic O'Brien film of October 2009, lasting 7.40.

In 2011, he was the subject of a 4m feature, followed by a 6m interview by Jeremy Paxman.

In October 2013, he was interviewed again by Paxman on the news that he was leaving the English Defence League, 7m 22s. 

In February this year, he was interviewed by Kirsty Wark, about the radicalisation of Finsbury Park mosque murderer Darren Osborne, 6m.

In July Newsnight carried an 11-minute feature on the "Free Tommy Robinson", led by Raheem Kassam campaign, followed by a 3.30 interview with UKIP leader Gerard Batten.

Bits...

...that caught my eye from the BBC's report on LGBT Culture and Progression, sponsored by Director of Radio & Education James Purnell, published today.

"The BBC uses the acronym LGBT and some staff felt we should move towards reflecting a wider
definition and adopt LGBTQ or LGBTQ+."

"Staff told us that they felt there is a Hetronormative culture, particularly around language in the workplace."

"There was a general feeling that senior leaders who are LGBT were not visible. Staff felt that these role models were invaluable as it showed that sexuality/gender identity was not a barrier to progression."

"There was an overwhelming feeling that gay men were much more visible than other identities
within the LGBT community. Lesbians and gay women were not as visible and bisexuality was
never referenced and often misunderstood. Staff are aware of the numbers of disclosed trans staff
in the organsiation but they weren’t aware of staff who identified as trans"

The project team, producing ten recommendations now accepted by the Executive Board, were Chris Burns, now busy re-imagining BBC Local Radio; Phil Harrold, Company Secretary; Andrew Young,  Diversity Lead, Radio & Education; David Walker, Internal Communications Lead, Deputy Director General Group; Karen Millington – Co-chair, BBC Pride and a digital producer for BBC Learning at Salford; Matt Weaver, Co-chair, BBC Pride, Development Lead for BBC Children's, also Salford-based.

Walford news

More changes to come at Eastenders, now under the custody of Kate Oates: there are job ads for a Story Producer and a Storyliner, both on one-year fixed term contracts. For guidance, a storyliner " mediates between the Writer's creative desires and the commercial needs of the marketplace", amongst many other tasks. 

To come later this year: The National Audit Office's report on the E20 Project, designed to give new life to Eastenders' temporary front lot, first announced in 2014.

Promises

BBC Director of Content Charlotte Moore made a grand speech last night, in the form of the Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture. A little high on lists of current tv successes, and unaware of the difference between 'uncharted' and 'unchartered', but a strong, strategic text that pushes her into pole position as the next DG. Worth a read.

Fluter

For those anticipating more detail on the BBC's push to make more classical music available online, last night's launch of 'Our Classical Century' was pretty thin. Here's the section of Lord Hall's speech.

"We’ve been recording, creating and documenting great work for almost a century now ourselves. We have the public to thank for that. They own - via the BBC - one of the greatest classical music archives in the world. It captures iconic moments from the Proms to Cardiff Singer of the World, from BBC Introducing to our Young Musician competition - celebrating its 40th birthday this year.

In an age of ever growing platforms - and social media sharing - these performances - some historic and some very recent - will be returned to the public. We’ll make them available on iPlayer and BBC Sounds - an app we’re launching soon that will, we hope, transform what you hear from the BBC.

We want to work with partners across the creative sector to develop the ambition - for instance, using voice technology to bring the archive to life. The way we consume and share content has changed, of course, but music’s ability to bring us together has never felt more important - and classical music’s role in that should not be underestimated."

Regular readers will be delighted to learn that John Simpson has a role to play in one of the tv programmes that form part of the season. John and Suzy Klein will be co-hosts of a BBC Four documentary looking at classical music from 1936 to 1953. Suzy tells us "The BBC’s World Affairs Editor John Simpson is a huge classical fan, learnt the flute, and has a favourite classical playlist that accompanies him to war zones across the globe."

Anyway, the launch, in a basement belonging to Westminster University along the Euston Road, looked moderately lively towards the end...

Toasted

BBC marketing boss Philip Almond is heading for the world of private consultancy operating from his Berko home, after the arrival of Kerris Bright as Chief Customer Officer, who will now lead the marketing team. One suspects the exchange is not cost-neutral - Phil was on £211,000 p.a.; Kerris' deal probably won't be disclosed til July next year. There may well be some costs in the "re-structuring" column.

Mr Almond (Malvern College and Queens' College, Cambridge) brought skills acquired through selling Baileys, Smirnoff Ice and Burger King to the BBC six years ago. He got uncomfortably tangled up in the case of John Linwood and DMI back in 2014.  In 2015, he was surprised to learn the house opposite his had been used as a marijuana farm for six months.

Progress ?

Yesterday's review of 'efficiency' at the BBC ran to 37 pages, but is noticeably light on detail in at least one area. Here's all we get about the tendering of network radio shows...

"Under the new Charter, the BBC must also secure competition for at least 60% of relevant radio programming time by 31st December 2022 (relevant radio programmes refers to all network radio programmes except news programmes and repeats). We are making good progress in reaching this milestone; this has involved significant organisational change to deliver. So far the BBC has announced plans to compete titles such as Annie Mac and Dance Anthems on Radio 1, Vanessa Feltz on Radio 2, and The Danny Baker Show on 5live."

Apart from the dreadful use of "compete" as a transitive verb, this paragraph provides no measure of progress. Four shows out to tender across ten networks four years away from the deadline doesn't read like 'good progress'; the absence of a percentage suggests they'd rather keep quiet about it. Meanwhile, at Content (TV to you and me), COO Richard Dawkins is doggedly plodding on with tendering of long-runners. 

Digits out

BBC News' tv output reeled, staggered and stuttered yesterday, as servers running newsroom software OpenMedia failed. OpenMedia holds the key scripts and running orders, which in turn drive robotic cameras, graphics and video playout, etc. The News Channel resorted to an hour's repeat, as techies scratched their heads in the gallery; the Six and Ten O'Clock bulletins were shifted to the BBC's Millbank studios in Westminster, and their opening sequences simplified.

The BBC is famously risk averse when it comes to new newsroom software. The contract to replace the old ENPS with OpenMedia was signed with Annova, head-quartered in Germany, back in February 2015, and the roll-out has been tortoise-like. Servers running the same software around the country and abroad were unaffected, but there'll be alarm that automatic fall-back options within Broadcasting House didn't work.

Intrepid hacks Fiona Bruce and Mark Easton misjudged London's tea-time traffic flows. They first hailed a taxi, then flagged down a police car, to complete the 2.1 mile journey from BH to Millbank.

Now in a police car being escorted through the demo. @bbcnews is at stake! pic.twitter.com/YBu2RZTZpF

— Mark Easton (@BBCMarkEaston) October 10, 2018

Snip

The beleaguered management team at Johnston Press has thrown in the towel and put the "For Sale" signs up. The regional press group, with some jewels in its tarnished crown - including The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post and the 'i' - has a £220m bond due for repayment next June, but must have run out of re-financing options, under CEO David King (former CFO of BBC Worldwide). The share price has been dithering around 3p for some months - in theory, you could buy the whole lot for £3.5m.

Just saying....

Another warning this afternoon that programmes and services are in line for cuts as the BBC chases "strategic" savings to balance the books.

DDG Anne Bulford reports "We have set productivity targets across the whole BBCof at least 1.5% every year for the current five year period. At 31 March 2018, theBBC has already successfully delivered nearly a third of the overall £800 milliontarget. Another third of the target has already been planned."

Putting it another way, cuts of £266m a year have yet to be (publicly) identified. The BBC currently spends £15m on Radio 6 Music, saved from the axe by Trustees in 2010.  BBC Parliament costs £10m pa; Lord Hall seems to have re-imagined the impact of cuts there. BBC Three's annual budget was halved to £30m when it went online only in 2016. £266m is quite a big number.....

Something for everyone ?

The BBC iPlayer index on Music currently features close to 80 videos (some of them lead on to series). Not one of them could be be classified as jazz.

Steady, Eddie !

BBC Studios have hired Eddie Evelyn-Hall to be head of development in entertainment and music.
Eddie (Sussex Downs College and BA in Drama from Middlesex) started out as a casting producer for the first series of The Voice on BBC1.

Don't get on the wrong side of him.

Good morning @TLRailUK i just want to say from the bottom of heart, GO FUCK YOURSELVES! Have a great day.

— Eddie Evelyn-Hall (@EddieTheCoo) June 27, 2018

U R AWFUL! I had my delivery cancelled twice & gave up trying 2 call,website is a pile of turd. @Heals_Furniture r using someone else!

— Eddie Evelyn-Hall (@EddieTheCoo) May 16, 2017

Who's watching

BBC America will be pleased with the launch of the 13th Doctor. The US simulcast went out at 1.45pm East Coast time, when most of the nation is slumped in front of American football coverage. Total viewers were 1.4m - that's nearly 50% up on Peter Capaldi's final show. 782k tuned in for pre-show build-up; 631k stayed for a post-show special. The evening outing of the first episode picked up a further 361k viewers.

Glassed

Last night's imagine... on BBC1 ended with Ptolemy Dean, who looks after the fabric of Westminster Abbey, joshing with his sister, Tacita, and Dr John Hall, the rather smug Dean. Says Ptolemy, "No other cathedral could have got away with it".

The previous hour and two minutes featured the commissioning of a stained glass window from David Hockney, tapped up by Tacita (also Los Angeles-based) on behalf of Westminster. Alan Yentob spend some time with David at the opening ceremony, but it was essential that he visited the Hockney house in the Hollywood Hills to build up the dramatic tension. There was a script editor in the credits, but was anything left unsaid, as the lead was extruded around the coloured glass ?

Last year, the Abbey's income was £35.3m, from visitor fees, donations and investment income. Financial reserves stand at £22.6m. 'Charitable' expenditure was £26.5m - will the Hockney fee be classed as such ?

Rearguard action

The Times' Red Box daily email claims the BBC has quietly dropped planned cuts to its Parliament service, saying the Director General, Lord Hall was not properly informed.

There are plenty of places he might have read about the proposed cuts - closing eight out of 24 journalists jobs, and reducing the channel's output to simple relays of the proceedings. Last year, the budget was just £1.6m.

The NUJ noted that programmes to be cut included.....

The Day in Parliament and the Week in Parliament
Conversations, a series of long-form interviews with senior political figures
BOOKtalk
Speaker’s Lectures
Short films and explainers about parliamentary procedure

Cheeky boy Peter Knowles, Controller BBC Parliament, offered a blog celebrating the channel's current riches only last month.