Annuals

Film 2016, 2017 and 2018 showed BBC commissioners at their worst.  After six years of Claudia Winkleman wearing the Barry Norman mantle with more humour than insight, they couldn't make up their minds about a regular presenter (or wanted to fill more than one quota). So we've had on rotation Clara Amfo, Zoë Ball, Edith Bowman, Charlie Brooker, Al Murray, and Antonia Quirke, with an equally bewildering range of guest critics.

In 2016 (and perhaps 2010) they simply avoided the obvious choice to consolidate around critic Mark Kermode. His regular film review with Simon Mayo on Radio 5Live started in 2001, and has been offered as podcast since 2005. The show has a YouTube channel with 181k subscribers. Mr Kermode took to his preview clips to the BBC News Channel in around 2010, setting up a weekly 15 minute filler, Film 24,  first with Gavin Esler and now as Film Review with Jane Hill, which is still going strong. He also presents a weekly podcast 'Kermode on Film' using bits from his monthly live shows at the BFI with other regular features.  BBC4  now has an emerging Kermode strand in Secrets of Cinema.

The problem for BBC Director of Content Charlotte Moore is a phobic reluctance to spend on 'originations' after 2230. And, indeed, the complete lack of a weeknight strategy across BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4 after the 10 O'Clock News, where programmes are eating each other - and the less-successful bits of BBC3 have still to be fitted in. Newsnight is a part of this problem, and we note that the programme is advertising for a UK correspondent on a 12-contract or attachment only. Maybe there'll be a decision on its future in the Autumn.