Mind your feet

Do you hear the dull thud of darts-into-the-floorboards as they miss BBC targets ?

Broadcast reports that the BBC's Head of Diversity Tunde Ogungbesan is moving to Saudi Arabia - an odd move for a convivial Arsenal fan, apparently happy in his work since June 2015. Tunde was also in charge of 'Inclusion' and 'Succession', so finding a replacement should just be a question of opening an envelope. Or could his departure have something to do with decision by BBC Content to appoint a Head of Creative Diversity ?

Meanwhile, BBC1 schedules from 10.35pm on Mondays to Wednesdays have been cleared from March to broadcast BBC3 content. This mirrors an earlier attempt to attract yoof, led by Janet Street-Porter, when she controlled schedules BBC2 from 6pm for an hour, from 1988 to 1994. The problem is now that BBC3 content is definitely post-watershed stuff.

The BBC Board are on Content's back about reaching under 35s. The stats for online usage of the online-only BBC3 channel are appended to the news release. It claims 2018 requests for BBC3 programming on iPlayer ran at 4.2m a week, which is up 58% on 2017.  And that 47% of those requests come from under-35s.  Sounds moderately impressive - but clearly not good enough to satisfy the Board.