Minute by minute

Two new sets of minutes from the BBC Board have been released - one from July, the last under DG Lord Hall, and one from September, with Tim Davie in place, both held by video conference. 

In July, they note: The Board noted an update on the status of the E20 Programme in light of the challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.  This is code for further delay and cost in constructing the new Eastenders set at Elstree. 

Directors approved the additional content investment as set out in the paper, in order to enhance the autumn and winter audience offer in line with the content strategy agreed by the Board at its March meeting.  This looks like sanction to buy in more ready-made programmes to fill Covid-created gaps in the pipeline.

In September, there was better financial news, against gloomy predictions made earlier in the year: There was now greater clarity on costs to the end of the year and licence fee income projections were positive, against the budget set out at the start of Covid-19.

Much of the rest is filled out with the usual Director-trumpet-blowing. Tim Davie maybe about to shorten that:  In the coming months, the executive reporting to the Board would be reshaped to focus reporting on the priorities and on audience value metrics.

Addendum

There's an OBE for Eric Robson, former chairman of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, for services to tourism - he's honorary president of the Cumbria Tourism organisation.

Gong-ho

 A poor haul for the BBC in the New Year Honours List. 

Jonathan (Jonty) Sydney Claypole becomes a Member of the Order of the British Empire, as he departs as Director of Arts. 

Radio indie boss Phil Critchlow becomes an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.  He had six years with the BBC, starting as a studio manager, working on pop programmes for the World Service, and producing at the pre-'Live' Radio 5. 

Brian Barwick is made an OBE. He spent close to 20 years at BBC Sport, producing Football Focus, Match of the Day and World Cup coverage, rising to Head of Sport in 1995. Most recently, he's been Chairman of the Rugby Football League. 

There's also an OBE for Bob Lockyer. He started in the BBC Post Room, became a floor manager on the soap opera Compact, then went on to direct live relays of ballet, and produced a range of specially-commissioned dance pieces in the 70s and 80s. His partner for 40 years was (Sir) John Drummond.

Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood is another OBE. He worked as a news reporter and produced for the BBC in Manchester in the 70s, before turning to presenting our past. He used to step out with Pattie Caldwell. 

Architect Sir David Chipperfield, who got most but not all he wanted from the BBC's investment in Pacific Quay, Glasgow, becomes a Companion of Honour. 

Sheila Hancock, who came to BBC TV in the first two series of The Rag Trade, is made a Dame. Lesley Manville adds CBE to OBE; she's most recently been seen as bewigged Lydia Quigley in Harlots, a pandemic purchase by the BBC. 

John Angeli becomes an OBE; he was at the BBC from 1987 to 2004, working at Westminster and for News Online; he now works on parliamentary broadcasting.

There's a CBE for Marcus Agius, who toiled as a BBC non-executive director at a time when executive salaries and pay-offs reached their peak. He's rewarded for chairing the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

What it takes to make the charts

Broadcaster and digital audio thinker Matt Deegan looks ahead, and offers some insight into the reality of the podcast scramble....

 “The embarrassing secret for many corporate podcasters is how few downloads they receive and the limit to how many times they can say “hey, downloads don’t matter, it’s good for the brand!”. ..... Generating an audience of more than 35k downloads per episode puts you in the top 1% of all podcasts - but the revenue you can generate from that is likely to be under £1,000 (often significantly). So if you’re able to pay participants and an editor, there isn’t a lot left."

Upbeat

 As the year turns, it's hard to find analysis that predicts a bright future for the BBC. 

So it's good to discover that BT, in the shape of its policy person, Helen Burrows, thinks there's a good technical and financial future for PSBs, in evidence to the DCMS Select Committee. 

She's suggesting a move to a universal Internet Protocol delivery system for PSBs (and some Government services, say, from HMRC and DWP) which all broadband providers will be obliged to carry. This would free up DTT spectrum (although its not clear what use it would be to others) and significantly reduce PSBs' current transmission costs. IP delivery would allow more targeted services, allowing increased regionalisation; universal provision would help with online education and management of healthcare. 

"We suggest that a cross industry managed migration programme, modelled on the analogue to digital switchover (DSO) programme, could ensure all households get online using a modern TV that can receive online IP distribution with favourite PSB TV programming as the lead service. Once connected, vital public services such as primary healthcare can be delivered via the device they are already comfortable with: their TV."

Continuous revolution

Led by The Times, hastily followed The Mail, newspapers deliver a kicking to the BBC for pay-offs totalling £26.6m this financial year, to speed the departure of 314 members of staff. 

It's hard to believe newspapers don't have similar schemes and statutory commitments. In 2020, News Corp spent $1,830m on 'impairment and restructuring'.

The bigger story is, surely, who is creating all the new jobs, which means the BBC effectively employed a fairly stable 20,000 people over the past decade, despite a regular annual spend of some scale on 'restructuring'.  

2010 £62m
2011 £63m
2012 £103m
2013 £10m
2014 £11m
2015 £21m
2016 £21m
2017 £50m
2018 £13m
2019 £25m

Wot next ?

2021 may well be another year for watching what Amazon Prime does next in the UK.  Let's hope John Whittingdale can keep up with them. 

There's end-of-year talk of interest in buying Formula One rights, Six Nations, and cricket (though not in England). They've picked up an unexpected bundle of Premier League matches in lockdown, and that looks set to continue well into 2021.  They got much more spare cash than Comcast/Sky, which is why Sky Q was more than ready to offer Amazon Prime within the Sky Environment. Sky, Virgin and BT are hoping to convince the UK that you need their platforms to get all this good stuff, without shifting between slow-loading EPGs. 

But with 5G spreading you can sense more and more under-34s driving their big screens from the mobile phone.  Could Sky and Virgin be facing the UK equivalent of US cable cutting in the year ahead ?

Spoiler

The tv remake of Black Narcissus has already been shown in the States. 

Look away now if you don't like unpleasant reviews. 

Roger Ebert: “Black Narcissus” struggles for three hours to justify its existence. Naturally, by virtue of length, some characters and themes get more screen time than in the 101-minute original. But none of the expansion registers as valuable.    

New Yorker: This is a landmark of Hollywood-on-Thames trompe-l'oeil.

New York Times: As easy as this “Black Narcissus” is to watch, however, you may find yourself wondering why, exactly, you’re watching a show about a bunch of nuns in the mountains in 1914. Telling the tale this coherently — Coe and Christensen have gone to a lot of trouble in terms of logical progression and cleverly incorporating the book’s themes — has the effect of exposing the plot contrivances that the emotional texture and psychological acuity of Godden’s book glossed over.

Thomasma

BBC America is in the middle of a Dr Who marathon; no sightings of Star Trek until January 4th. 

The person guiding the channel into 2021 is Courtney Thomasma, who joined AMC Networks in 2013, from audience researchers Nielsen - having started her career in ad sales research for Sony Pictures. She went to Detroit Country College and boasts at BA in communications from Pepperdine University, and an MA in Cinema from New York University. She's completed the Cable Executive Management program at Harvard Business School.

Courtney (below, centre) lives not far from the Empire State building, and has company of a pet rabbit during lockdown. 

Embed from Getty Images

Subscription Xmas

Looks like it was the first full-on Christmas to benefit the streamers. The highest rated non-Queen show on Christmas Day was Call The Midwife, with an overnight average audience of 5.4m, followed by the latest re-incarnation of Blankety Blank, on 5.3m. 

In 2019, the winner was Gavin & Stacey, with 11.6m, followed by Strictly's Christmas Special and East Enders, both on 5.5m. 

Hire me

Former BBC DG Mark Thompson, resting on his digital laurels over Christmas in Maine, has given a long interview to the Irish Times (largely on the grounds that his mother came from Donegal). 

He blames lack of strategic thinking about streaming by Governments around the world for the current stress levels in public service broadcasters.

“The work hasn’t been done, and because of that most governments don’t really have coherent answers for what should happen to the public broadcasters. For most public broadcasters, it is a kind of scary moment.”

For Irish readers, he says the licence fee will survive for a while in the UK because Boris Johnson has other fish to fry. “The political capital you need to spend on a fundamental reworking of the funding of the BBC, I just don’t see how you would spare the time for it, honestly. It would be a big battle and it’s not quite clear where that battle would end.”

Margaret Thatcher came to power wanting to do this and “never got round to it”, he notes. 

Let's hope all these long interviews bring Mr Thompson's skills to the attention of headhunters around the world in 2020, and he can rejoin the world of gainful employment. 

Staying in touch

I've no access to overnight figures, but strongly suspect ITV's version of a ten o'clock news bulletin attracted more viewers than BBC1 last night. The BBC stuck to their published schedules, which, in the middle of a pandemic and Brexit negotiations, shunted the main evening news back to 22.35, in favour of the King Gary Christmas special. 

ITV were also bolder than the BBC (when they got round to it), leading with 'We're on the verge of a Brexit deal', handled by two ways, in ever-increasing volume, with James Mates, Joel Hills and Robert Peston. For the BBC, the impending deal was after a whole range of Covid headlines,  and the full-ish report on Brexit started 11 minutes in. 

Today, the 'evening' BBC1 bulletin is at 3.50pm, with the main news even later than yesterday, at 11.30pm.  

More Gearey

Kevin Gearey moved to tv news after time with the sport team at World Service. The core of his job was providing short, sharp summaries over joined-up clips of action, often conditioned by the limit on 'news' access to the coverage of commercial rivals, for the main bulletins on BBC1.  He required five ingredients - a tatty reporter's notebook, a biro, a fag, a pint of lager, and a brain full of potential wordplays. 

Former BBC Director General Mark Byford has told of the time he called in on a Headingley Test Match, when on an official visit to BBC Leeds (as then Director of Nations and Regions). He met Kevin coming out of the beer tent, and told him he'd slipped away for a discreet couple of hours to watch England batting. Kevin's piece on the day's events for that evening's Six O'Clock News included a cutaway of the section of the crowd including Mr Byford. The script line - "so tensely poised was the afternoon session that some people even left their place of work to come and watch the drama unfold."

Kevin Gearey RIP

Farewell to former BBC sports journalist Kevin Gearey, who's died aged 66.  He left Auntie back in 2011, after 32 years in harness.  He tried Twitter in September that year, but got bored after six tweets. 

That doesn't mean he wasn't active in journalism up to the end. He was being treated for cancer, but found himself in the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham earlier this month with a chest infection. He had to share his tiny ward with a rather Covid-19 angry patient, but still had the drive to share his story with the Kent Messenger Group.  His ruby wedding trip to Greece also made news in September.

Tales of, and by Gearey, are legendary. You could try the time he nearly made it to Los Angeles for the Lennox Lewis/Vitali Klitschko "Battle of the Titans" in 2003.  Or his elegant but still cheeky tv obituary of Harry Carpenter.  BBC director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth said Gearey was "a superb sports writer and reporter, whose witticisms amused and engaged audiences on TV and radio throughout his career".

Thanks

It's time for those pre-Christmas year-end emails of encouragement from senior managers in BBC News.

The basic offering from Director Fran Unsworth is a model of brevity. But if you work in Newsgathering, you may struggle to keep reflux at bay. There, the emails have caught something of 2020 Strictly-despite-Covid gushing style, and then given it the full 110%.  I've read 'em, so you don't have to, and that's how it will stay. 

I'll stick with Fran's version.  "To those at work during the festive season - whether you're in the office, on the road, or at home - thank you again for all you’re doing to keep BBC News on air and online during this challenging time."

Boxed up

With fewer and fewer people manning the pumps at Broadcasting House, there's less of a requirement for on-site seasonal catering. 

Senior managers may like to consider the festive boxes from their favourite restaurant and bar, The Riding House Cafe in Great Titchfield Street. It's a little too late to order their Xmas Box, but the New Year's Eve Box (for delivery 30th December) is a snip at £140 for two. 

Taittinger Champagne Punch

artichoke dip, grilled flatbread

salt & sugar-cured salmon, cucumber, fermented chilli, beetroot

oak-smoked duck, puffed barley, quince, umeboshi

500g 32 day-aged cote de boeuf

crispy new potatoes

truffled mac & cheese, shallot rings, capers

kale, chilli & garlic 

Snaffling Pig pork scratchings & beer sticks

sticky toffee & brandy pudding

Mince Pie Shooters

seasonal table decorations

party playlist

drinking game

Don't hang about

For critics cheesed off over the years at BBC News' house-style of live intros and final pontifications to perfectly comprehensive recorded items from tv reporters 'at the scene', it seems, finally, Tier 4 may have done for it.

Newsgathering editors are, I'm told, instructing UK teams in the field to get in and get out, with the minimum time spent doing location 'lives'.  You can also look forward to reporters talking to you with the clear masks previously favoured by bar staff and hairdressers. 

All this came too late for hapless Simon Jones at Dover, live for most of the day at the ferry terminal,  when the story was along the M20.  If the BBC had done some simple counting of its own, it could have challenged the Government's 170 claim much earlier. 

Crossover

In 2013, when the BBC first contemplated renewing the Eastenders set to cope with high definition tv, the average audience per show was just under 8m. 

In the most recent week of consolidated BARB figures, no edition of Eastenders featured in the top 15 BBC1 shows, meaning ratings of below 4.8m. 

The new set is scheduled for operation in 2023. 

Reality check

It seems that the eyebrows of Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps didn't flex upwards a jot yesterday, when briefed that there were just 170 lorries hanging around queuing for the Dover ferries. Alarming, but there's previous Government form in this lack of real-world experience.... 

Dominic Raab: "I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this but... we're particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing"

Labour accuses #Brexit secretary of not knowing "the very basics" after speech on trade

More: https://t.co/sJySjzmx3M

[tap video to expand] pic.twitter.com/RteA7dTJZn

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 8, 2018

Pulling rank

For those of you who find BBC job titles more complicated than the higher echelons of the British Army, let's assist with the overnight appointed of Adam Fleming as BBC Chief Political Correspondent.  He replaces Vicki Young, who has been promoted to BBC Deputy Political Editor. 

Vicki became Chief Political Correspondent in 2015, when the previous incumbent, Norman Smith was promoted to Assistant Political Editor. Norman was made Chief Political Correspondent in 2011, when Laura Kuenssberg left the role to become Business Editor at ITV News. She had been made Chief Political Correspondent in 2009.

2005 to 2009 Guto Harri

2003 to 2005 Mark Mardell 

2002 to 2003 Jon Sopel

1999 to 2002 Nick Robinson

1997 to 1999 Huw Edwards, Chief Political Correspondent for News 24. 

1992 to 2000 John Sergeant was Chief Political Correspondent, a title which was created to keep him happy. 

Take note

If anyone's at a loose end in BBC Corporate HQ, we haven't had any Board minutes since June. Last minutes from Editorial Standards are from December 2019; the last minutes of the "Wales Committee" are from October 2019; the last minutes of the "England Committee" are from October 2018.  It would be awful to think they simply hadn't met....

Court report

The Telegraph, in-house newsletter for Government's mood on broadcasting, says decriminalisation of licence fee-non-payment is about to be nudged into medium-length grass. 

Culture Minister John Whittingdale has made it clear that the issue "is not as simple as was first suggested", and it looks about to be bundled in discussions from 2022 on wider changes in the funding of public service broadcasting. It's the same view his boss, Oliver Dowden, a lawyer, expressed in October. 

   

Timing

 From yesterday....

literally, same pic.twitter.com/I6E9JQi9ln

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) December 20, 2020

Up a bit

The 2020 Strictly final nudged slightly ahead of the previous year's overnight ratings, with an average of 11.6m viewers over 144 minutes, compared with 11.3m over 125 minutes in 2019. 

This helped Michael McIntyre's The Wheel up to 6.7m, even though it featured Gemma Collins. 

Taxi !

Covid Bob - the BBC's Managing Director, Bob Shennan - will have delighted licence fee payers with a new rule coming in on Monday

"People who are working in tier four locations in England, or in an area in full lockdown, who would normally use public transport, can book a taxi to get to work.  People who wish to drive to work in a tier four or locked down location will be supported with mileage and congestion charges."

Meanwhile at News, Director Fran Unsworth is still pushing to do more with less. “In light of the new restrictions, we are also actively looking at how we further simplify our output."

My reporters are better than yours

The news that Panorama is to investigate Panorama is a reminder of the clear moral superiority of the journalists they employ - or not, depending on your perspective. Editor Rachel Jupp is reported to have turned to reporter John Ware and producer Leo Telling to pick apart the inception of Martin Bashir's 1995 interview with Princess Diana, whilst a good number of BBC licence fees are being spent in parallel on Lord Dyson's quasi-judicial investigation into the same matter. 

For this self-flagellation to be conceived, Head of Current Affairs Joanna Carr will have had to give approval, and it can't be happening without the knowledge of Director of News Fran Unsworth and Director General Tim Davie. 

Spookily John Ware was the reporter on the Panorama special A Fight to the Death, granted 90 minutes of prime-time in January 2004. Programme editor Peter Horrocks said the very making of this "even-handed and objective account" on the doomed defence of Andrew Gilligan by then DG Greg Dyke against persistent challenge from Alistair Campbell was evidence that the BBC could be impartial. 

John Ware and three Panorama colleagues continued to share their important insights in September 2004, in a letter to staff magazine Ariel, picked up by The Guardian. 

What time did you say ?

Are you sure, Vanessa ?   

The Radio 2 DJ Miss Feltz, 58, (Haberdaskers' Aske's and Trinity, Cambridge) the seventh most-expensive staff presenter at the BBC, had a reaction somewhat out of line with the average BBC staff member, on being asked to start broadcasting at 0400 weekdays, rather than 0500, in the New Year. 

“When Radio 2 asked me to extend my show I was thrilled! It's a real privilege to spend such intimate time with the UK’s early birds – and they continue to fascinate and astound us with their messages."

Up

The fake Xmas trees have been assembled overnight around BBC News at Broadcasting House, with very much fewer staff available for the dancing-around featured in previous years.  The robot cameras will probably not zoom in on the star - it carries, inexplicably, a photo of Radio 1's senior DJ Scott Mills. 

Topping out the BBC Newsroom Christmas Trees - can you see who our star is? @scott_mills @The_Xmas_Jumper pic.twitter.com/cDAYu6wBjd

— Chris Cook (@chrisckmedia) December 19, 2020

One day game

Not sure if this is good news or not. The sadly forlorn site of the old Villandry shop, bar and restaurant in Great Portland Street, W1, could soon be the home of a cricket-themed restaurant. Sixes Cricket Limited has applied for an alcohol licence. A "Sixes Cricket Simulator" will feature on the left hand side, and will have an adjacent bar for appreciative crowds, if the application goes through. 

The (cover) driving force behind this new venture is Callum MacKinnon, who now has two branches of Scottish-meat celebrating Mac & Wild, in Great Titchfield Street and Devonshire Square. 

COO-king on gas

BBC DG Tim Davie has lighted up on Leigh Tavaziva, 47, as its new Chief Operating Officer. She comes from Centrica/British Gas, where, most recently as Managing Director, UK Customer Operations,  she has being trying to instil into the organisation a "customer obsession". Maybe there was a better word... 

She's available to start in the New Year, which suggests she might have been caught up in recent executive churn at Centrica. Leigh will run Design and Engineering (from whence Matthew Postgate departed), Finance, Legal, Commercial Rights and Business Affairs (from whence Bal Samra is departing), Quality, Risk and Assurance, and Procurement. And she gets to sit on both the Executive Committee and the BBC Board. 

Zimbabwe-born Leigh's first love was dance - as Leigh Saunders, she spent two seasons with the BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio in the early 90s. She came to England and joined partner Brawen Tavaziva, a dancer and choreographer who had come from Zimbabwe to work with Phoenix Dance in Leeds. She started with British Gas in 2000, acquiring Chartered Management Accountant status in 2002, to build on a degree in Economics and Industrial Psychology from the distance-learning University of South Africa. 

She likes a park run, distance swimming, and, with 37 Centrica colleagues, took on a five-day trek up a Moroccan mountain in 2010. 

When she was Group Director of Strategy and Transformation at Centrica, she claims to have shifted employee engagement scores from 38% to 75% in less than 12 months. Will she share Year One at the BBC ?

Numerology

The BBC is oddly coy about some figures. Yesterday Press Gazette reported Comscore figures for websites covering the third quarter of 2020 - and top of the table were the cluster of 70 sites owned by Reach, with an average 42.1 million monthly visitors, 3.5 million more than second-place BBC. 

The BBC told Press Gazette that its own audience data shows that the number of unique browsers to BBC sites has increased in recent years  – driven largely by increased audience to BBC News online. "The BBC’s own performance data records a much higher number of unique visitors to their sites than Comscore’s figures."

Meanwhile in almost-year-long figures for BBC Sounds, we were told that, from January to November, there were 1.1 billion UK plays of radio, music and podcasts on BBC Sounds. Over a similar period in 2019 (February - November 2019) there were 630 million plays. And then - "new data also shows there were 460 million plays of podcasts and on demand radio programmes on BBC Sounds in the UK in 2020, with a 21% increase in podcast listening since the start of the year."  Doesn't that suggest that 630m 'plays' were simply people listening to existing BBC radio stations online or via the app and Alexa ?  And what's happened to the previously-quoted 3.6m users ? 

Who plays Emily ?

While Emily Maitlis waits for OFCOM to opine on her Newsnight Dominic Cummings monologue, she can soon take pleasure in a pilot first episode of "Airhead", a comedy/drama version of her behind-the-scenes book on news broadcasting. 

It seems to have been scripted by Laura Deeley, who's written 10 episodes of The Crown, and former Beeboid Mark Freeland, now head of comedy at Working Title, is leading on production. The deal was brokered by literary agent Eugenie Furniss, who spookily also acts for Celia Walden, wife of Em's drinking chum, Piers Morgan. 

We await news of the casting....

Hand-picked

We'll never know how many brand consultants were involved in identifying "BBC Select" as the title for the Corporation's next attempt to make it big in North America. 

We're told the new ad-free streaming service will launch in early 2021. "An antidote to the predictable, BBC SELECT will be the definitive streaming channel for independent thinkers."  

Rebeccas Glashow, President, BBC Studios - Americas, says “For nearly a century, the BBC has been synonymous with extraordinary television programs – full stop. Name any genre, the BBC is best in class at identifying talent and providing them a platform for expression."  (She may not yet have tuned into BBC America, today showing Star Trek episodes from 6am to 6pm, followed by two US film, The Outsiders and Goodfellas.)

The new service will initially only be available via Apple tv channels, and the subscription price has not been announced. It will give our allies priceless access to the works of Grayson Perry, Reggie Yates, Mary Beard, Emeli Sande and Louis Theroux. 

Launch director is Louise La Grange (D F Malan High School, Bellville and B.Acc, Stellenbosch University), with assistance from former BBC4 editor, Cassian Harrison.  

Some numbers

Odds and ends from the latest 7 day ratings, week ending 6 December. 

Only Connect topped the BBC2 table, on 2.8m. On BBC1, ratings of 11.3m and 9.7m for the Saturday and Sunday Strictlys, followed by Countryfile on 6.1m.  Accountants will be pleased to see His Dark Materials in the Top 15, on 4.8m.  

On BBC4, the Icelandic crime palaver Valhalla Murders took the two top spots, on 1.1m and 1.0m. Two editions of The Joy Of Painting, from the last century, were in the Top 15, on 485k and 444k. 

On Sky News, veteran Mark Austin takes five of the seven top slots with his 1700 News Hour. Best rating 288k. 

"If held"

Freedom of Information enquiry, from P. John

In recent days, a number of images been circulated in the press showing falsified bank statements 
prepared for the BBC journalist Martin Bashir. 
 
By an extraordinary co-incidence, a corresponding letter from Princess Diana has purportedly been 'found' by the BBC that suggests Princess Diana was fully aware the bank statements were falsified, and yet had no bearing on her willingness to be interviewed by Mr. Bashir. 
 
Given the falsified bank statements are in the public domain, please could you also disclose; 
 
1) a scan of the purported letter from Princess Diana to the BBC acknowledging & disregarding the 
existence of the BBC journalist's falsified bank statements. I would be particularly keen to see the 
handwriting & signature. 
2) identify the address/recipient, and state the date that letter was received by the BBC  
3) confirm or deny that you consider the letter is genuine and not also a creative fraud, and on what basis you take that view
 
Freedom of Information response,  from the BBC

Questions 1 and 2 
The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because if held it would be held for 
the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ ........ As you may be aware, the Rt. Hon. Lord Dyson has been appointed to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances around the Panorama interview. We consider it would not at this stage be in the public interest to disclose any further information that is or could be relevant, as that will not be conducive to the orderly conduct of the investigation. We have made it clear that we will hand over records to Lord Dyson’s investigation, and publish the report of the investigation at its conclusion. 

 

Question 3 

Please be advised that the Freedom of Information Act gives a general right of access to all types 

of  recorded  information  held  by  public  authorities.    As  this  is  not  a  request  for  recorded 

information, and we are not required to create new information to respond to a request, or give a 

judgement  or  opinion  that  is  not  already  recorded,  we  cannot  provide  the  information  in  your 

request.  

Soap trends

 BBC media release as we head to the 70th Anniversary of The Archers on Radio 4.

"Almost five million people listen to the Archers every week."

BBC official blog on 60th Anniversary of The Archers on Radio 4.

 "The drama attracts an audience of over five million in the UK"

BBC News Online report on 50th Anniversary of The Archers on Radio 4.

"The first episode of the Archers was broadcast on 1 January 1951 and it is still going strong, with a weekly audience of around four million listeners."

BBC Year Book 1990

"In radio, The Archers, made in Birmingham for Radio 4 and celebrating its 40th anniversary, held its weekly audience, its two editions and its weekend omnibus being heard by a total of 3 5 million."

Gary going

Gary Davey, an antipodean who's been one of Rupert Murdoch's right hand men since 1981, is stepping down next year at Sky, now in the hands of Comcast. 

Gary, 66, was born in Adelaide, and working as a reporter and news anchor for Network 10 before the call came from Murdoch to join him in New York.  He's worked in Italy, Germany and Hong Kong.

Stateside succession planning

Variety tells us that, while much of the BBC may be in retreat, the Natural History Unit, under the direction of Alpha Male Wunderkind Tom McDonald, is setting up a team in Los Angeles. It'll sit alongside existing BBC Studios staff in 10351 Santa Monica Boulevard, the historic Route 66. 

“Our titles have a global impact, but we have been a Bristol-based company. Our biggest growth has been with U.S. buyers so it makes sense that we grow as those relationships grow, and have a 24/7 presence"

“One of the things that happens with the growth in popularity of natural history is an emerging pool of natural history talent in the U.S., and we want to be the incubator for that talent,” says McDonald. Mmmm. Attenborough, 94, to be followed by Yanks ?

Christmas yet to come

Trembling Beeboids are half-expecting an announcement of a new chairman before Christmas, and the hot money is still on former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp. 

Mr Sharp has been on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies since 2005. The Centre has produced two papers on BBC funding since then, both written by former Sky public affairs director Martin Lejeune.

"The licence fee should be abolished and the BBC should instead be directly-funded by the government, in exactly the same way as the Arts Council or the NHS. The remit of the BBC should be simply and clearly defined as: ‘The task of the BBC is to produce audio-visual (including digital) news and other content which is distinctively different from that which the market provides, but which is important to the UK’s social, political and cultural wellbeing.’"

September 2016

"The interests of the consumer are being met by non-regulated providers. A decline in state intervention is a necessary, desirable and inevitable consequence." 

March 2009

BBC Mobbed

Over the past six months, BBC America has at least shown a few programmes from the BBC at weekends, recently majoring on the David Attenborough catalogue. Today, Planet Earth episodes stop at 10am Eastern Time, to be followed by those Great British Films, Run All Night, The Road to Perdition, Public Enemies and two showings of Goodfellas.  Is there a point to this, Tim Davie ?

Missive

The Telegraph has some new details on the letter written by Princess Diana to the BBC in the wake of her Panorama interview with Martin Bashir.  

It is, the paper says, 'longer and more detailed than previously thought, and praises Bashir for his conduct before and during the interview'. The handwritten letter was on Kensington Palace stationery and arrived by courier in an official envelope. It went missing for 25 years, after a member of the Panorama team - not thought to be Bashir - took it home as a keepsake. 

The Dyson inquiry into the matter is expected to take six months - and The Telegraph says the BBC will also point to further correspondence from Princess Diana to another of their reporters about the possibility of giving an interview, as evidence of her willingness to talk on the record without pressure. 

Wrapped up

As we glide towards an extended Christmas week, the BBC News Channel gets padded out with bubble-wrap. 

An insider has listed possible times for some of the many 'look-backs' that are already pencilled into the schedule - they are likely to get more than one outing. 

The Year in Science with Rebecca Morelle (21/12 at 14:30)
The Coronavirus Pandemic with Hugh Pym (22/12 at 14:30)
The Business Year with Ben Thompson (22/12 at 20:30)
The Media Year with Amol Rajan (23/12 at 14:30)
We Remember (a montage) (Xmas Eve at 14:30)
The Year in Sport with Patrick Gearey (Xmas Eve at 17:30)
The Year in Politics with Leila Nathoo (Xmas Eve at 19:30)
The Royal Year with Daniela Relph (Boxing Day at 03:30)

Whose call ?

They first came to close Saturday Review on Radio 4 in 2017, under previous Controller Gwyneth Williams. She gave it a reprieve in July that year.  It had been on air since 1998.

The show was last heard just before lockdown on March 21; new Controller Mohit Bakaya announced it wouldn't be on air 'for the time being'. Now regular presenter Tom Sutcliffe says it's not coming back, and he's working on other things. The slot is currently filled with repeats - this weekend lovers of the live performing arts can enjoy Debbie McGee discussing her Teenage Diary with actor/comedian Rufus Hound. 

Did Mo (with a cv rooted in Front Row et al) make the closure call ?  Or is it now a 'genre' issue for the Director of Arts ? Or the Chief Content Officer ? 

Chuffing

Andrew Bridgen MP was among those taking a rail trip yesterday aboard a private charter operated by Locomotive Services Ltd, branded The Brexit Express. 

The two engine (1960s diesels), four carriage ensemble had travelled down from Crewe in the morning, and picked up passengers from platform seven at Victoria for a run to Shalford and back. 

Locomotive Services are owned by Jeremy Hosking, a multi-millionaire Brexiteer who has recently doshed up actor Laurence Fox's emerging Reclaim party. 

Creativity

Latest figures from the DCMS says the 'creative industries'  contributed £115.9bn of Gross Value Added to the economy in 2019, accounting for 5.9% of total UK GVA. The GVA of creative industries rose by 5.6% compared with 2018, and by 43.6% between 2010 and 2019 in real terms.

By comparison, the construction industry contributed £129.3bn GVA in 2019, the automobile industry contributed £49.1bn, and agriculture £13.0bn. 

Connections

If you're struggling to find an executive mentor, head on over to Aziz Corporate, where former BBC HR Director Valerie Hughes D'Aeth has turned up on the books. 

Aziz Corporate was founded in 1983 by former BBC and ITV newsman Khalid Aziz. Perhaps best remembered at Look North, Leeds, he claims to have given former BBC Deputy Director General Mark Byford his chance in broadcasting.  "I got MB his first job – summer holiday relief gofer in the newsroom at Leeds – straight from university – from where he went from strength-to-strength."

Oh Kay

Sky News' own fountain-of-youth-and-party-animal Kay Burley is 'off', as are some of her younger colleagues, following the festival of events to mark her 60th birthday.  Churls are speculating as to what happens when she returns from holiday. 

I'll just point out that her weekday breakfast show has yet to make the weekly list of Top 15 shows on the network, putting its average audience in the most-recently measured seven days below 150,000). 

Mid-morning all

Radio 5Live says goodbye to Emma Barnett this morning. Before Naga Munchetty arrives to take the chair in the New Year, we get a week of Clare McDonnell, a week of Adrian Chiles and a week of Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Presumably other broadcasting dynasties are available. Just not around Salford....

Global global global

I think I've spotted the longest new BBC job title of 2020. 

Global Head Digital Advertising Operations (Senior Manager Advertising and Technology), BBC Global News.

I wonder if the blurb makes the job clearer.

The ideal candidate has operated in complex Ad Operations businesses, is focused on sales enablement, has managed highly technically skilled teams and has delivered successful results in a solutions-first environment. This is a key operational appointment reporting into the SVP Commercial Operations based in London, and has a global remit.

Voices off

Sharing bulletins at 'off-peak' during lockdown must have allowed Radio 4 presentation to make some savings they intend to hang on to, in order to bid farewell to no less than three newsreaders. 

Corrie Corfield, 59, (Stratford on Avon Grammar for Girls and Goldsmiths London) leaves after a final shift in February. Diana Speed, c57, (Ashford School and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Neil Sleat, ageless, (somewhere in Bath and Warwick University) are also on their way.

Welsh terrier

Dogged Welsh MP Alun Cairns presented the first reading of his BBC (Transparency) Bill in the Commons yesterday afternoon, with a view to an unlikely second reading in the New Year. It would make the BBC publish all invoices over £500 every quarter, break down regional spend, disclose payments to personal service companies, staff remuneration and exit payments, and outside payments.

His co-signatories were Julian Knight, William Wragg, Heather Wheeler, Sir Bernard Jenkin, Dame Cheryl Gillan, Mel Stride, Jeremy Wright, Karen Bradley, Jackie Doyle-Price, Robert Halfon and Andrew Bowie. 

The Bill looks a little like the BBC (Audit Arrangements and Publication of Invoices) Bill, brought forward by one Alun Cairns in November 2012, which failed to progress. Then, his co-signatories were  David Amess, Richard Bacon, Guto Bebb, Stephen Barclay, Dan Byles, Philip Davies, Robert Halfon, Dr Phillip Lee, Ian Paisley and James Wharton.

Getting the needle

With nods to the Nations and Regions, the BBC One O'Clock News bulletin featured no fewer than 15 moving pictures (including opening titles) and one still of pellicular penetration today. The Covid-19 vaccine is administered by intramuscular injection, aiming at the deltoid muscle of the upper arm. 

TV changes

A very gentle restructuring exercise by BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore leaves us with few very big casualties. Patrick Holland, whose job running BBC2 and BBC4 closes, moves elegantly into the new role of Director of Factual. Kate Phillips, who's been interim Controller BBC1, secures the role of running Entertainment, from which she came. Shane Allen keeps Comedy, Piers Wenger keeps Drama, and Rose Garnett continues to mind Film. 

Dan McGolpin will move into the newly created portfolio role as Director of BBC iPlayer & Channels. BBC Three remains unchanged, with Fiona Campbell as Controller, but reporting to McGolpin.  

Cassian Harrison, formerly 'editor' of BBC Four, has nowhere to go back to, from his 9-month attachment to BBC Studios. There are three new jobs he might apply for - Head of Portfolio Scheduling, Channel Editor of Daytime and Early-Peak, and Head of Programme Acquisition. 

There's no indication of how this might fit, if at all, with the future management of network radio. 

Thinking time

Analysis by consultants Mediatique for Ofcom suggests that an advertising-funded BBC might expect income of around £2.7bn a year (down £1.1bn on current licence fee funding). 

If Auntie moved to subscription only, at say £10 a month, they estimate income of between £1.4bn and £2bn. 

A hybrid solution wouldn't improve the situation. All three routes would put content for nations and regions, and some niche audiences, at risk, and cast doubt over the future of S4C, World Service, Monitoring, and the BBC orchestras. 

Mediatique believe one route worth exploring to support PSB content is a widening the sort of tax relief that is currently given to some film makers and production companies. It's also suggesting more collaboration between PSB providers, such as BBC Studios and C4. 

Bal exit

Another long-time operator is leaving the BBC. Bal Samra, 54 ( Aveley School, Essex and Diploma in Business Studies from Thurrock Management Centre) departs at the end of March.  

After short spells with Ford, Unilever and GEC Marconi, he joined the BBC in June 1990. His first big gig was minding money for Jenny Abramsky in the launch of Radio 5 Live - then it was onwards and upwards, often to jobs with titles that seemed to have been created around him (or by him ?).  

He built on his sporting reputation - England amateur boxer - and played five-a-side with the likes of Peter Salmon. He was there for launches and deals - some great, some not so. He played hardball as the BBC needed to acquire talent rights for new digital enterprises. He let the indies into tv through the Window of Creative Competition.  He was there at the conception of the doomed DMI project. He may have been in the room when the BBC lost Bake Off.  He's wrangled with the shape-shifting IR35 regulations. He's seen BBC Store come and go.

For some time he's been among the BBC's top earners - currently on £328,000.  For a period, I dubbed him 'King of the Kabs', claiming £2k's worth in just one three month period. 

Bal is also the Chairman of Freesat; he's been a non-executive with Comic Relief; he's a trustee of the National Film & Television School and a trustee of Ormiston Academies Trust, which sponsors 30 academy schools across the UK.

Questionable

Tim Davie promises it'll all be different soon - but meanwhile, we've got the annual alumni version of University Challenge to remind us what it takes to get on at the BBC. 

So Media Editor and jobbing presenter Amol Rajan captains (natch) Downing College, Cambridge, with Dharshini David, BBC Global Trade correspondent on his side; Simon Jack, Business Editor appears for St John's Oxford; Stephen Smith, apparently still working for Newsnight, captains Reading; weather person Sarah Keith-Lucas captains Durham. 

The University of Central Lancashire team is captained by Richard Frediani, Editor of BBC Breakfast and features 'Multi-award winning BBC Sports Presenter" Richard Askam, and Mark Tattersall, a mate of Frediani's from ITV and Preston.

Sprouting, growing and becoming

 Former BBC DDG Mark Byford doing a pretty full-on Advent message for Winchester Cathedral. 

Which way now ?

Jonty Claypole has decided to step down as the BBC’s Director of Arts in April 2021. He's done the job for seven years without ever bothering the list of senior staff paid more than £150k. Bob Shennan was appointed as Director of Music at the same time, in the first flush of Lord Hall's re-commitment to culture, but did rather better, dosh-wise. 

Jonty, 45, was born in Australia, but grew up in West London. His first book, Words Fail Us: In Defence of Disfluency, is set for publication in January (He spent fifteen years of his life in and out of extreme speech therapy). It already has endorsements from novelists Colm Toibin and David Mitchell, and poet Owen Sheers. 

Morning, Bradford

The new 'temporary' BBC Radio Bradford launched this morning. This may have surprised those listening in for Radio Leeds on the medium wave frequency of 774m. They get their more familiar schedules back from 2pm. 

The station is set to run until the end of the financial year. It's not obviously available on BBC Sounds (yet ?) but can be found online. 

tradingaswdr · Mid-morning host Sanchez Payen on Radio Bradford

World views

The ubiquitous Sarah Sands has penned a think piece for Chatham House, about the need to preserve the BBC World Service.  This matters because the Government needs to conclude a five-year spending review.

The funding is something of a mess at the moment. The BBC is heading towards the end of a five-year pledge to maintain licence fee funding for the core service, at no less than £254m per annum, due to run out on April 1 2022. In fact, the BBC has been spending a little more - £278m in 2018/19, £261m in 2019/20.  Meanwhile the Foreign Office has been investing in additional services aimed at particular countries - to the tune of £73m a year. Any funding beyond 2021 will form, part of the spending review. Meanwhile, BBC World and bbc.com carry advertising and sponsored programmes outside the UK, and last year that brought in a mighty £2m, on revenues of £115m. 

Omen

Since at least 2016, the Twitter account @HuwsAtTen has been entertaining us with screengrabs of Huw Edwards' moments of repose before the drumbeats that herald the 10pm bulletin on BBC1.  

When behind the desk at the Newsroom Temple of Doom, the standard pose is a sort Sphinx-dextera-mutata. There's been no more than a couple of lapses, over 4 years. So here's Huw, seen left, as ever on November 30th. Yet on December 1st....    Was there a bet ?  

All change

The excellent Sima Kotecha apparently enjoying her own game of Spot The Difference on the BBC Breakfast sofa this morning..... 

Dreamless sleep

News that Sarah Sands may not have been an ideal physical match for the job of Today editor, the victim of "years of insomnia". 

Her forthcoming book, "The Interior Silence: 10 Lessons from Monastic Life", has been categorised by Google as 'Self Help'. The blurb says "Suffering from information overload, unable to sleep, Sarah Sands, former editor of the BBC's Today Programme, has tried many different strategies to de-stress... only to reject them because, as she says, all too often they threaten to become an exercise in self-absorption."

"Inspired by the ruins of an ancient Cistercian abbey at the bottom of her garden in Norfolk, she begins to research the lives of the monks who once resided there, and realises how much we may have to learn from monasticism."

Does it work ? "We follow Sands as she identifies the common characteristics of monastic life, the wisdoms to be learned from them and, behind the cloistered walls, discovers an unexpected capacity for solitude and a clarity of mind which enable her, after years of insomnia, to experience that elusive, dreamless sleep."

So close

 Another nugget from the Kids Company court case, courtesy of Stephen Delahunty for Third Sector. 

Answering questions from his own barrister, the charity's chairman Alan Yentob recalled a meeting with Oliver Letwin, then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for Civil Society, just before Christmas 2014.  He said the minister had been “deeply apologetic” after he was unable to secure £20m in support for the charity he had previously said “it should have” from the Troubled Families fund.

3 to 1

Two additional inquisitors have been added to the panel trying to find a new Chairman for the BBC. We knew about DCMS Permanent Secretary Sarah Healey and Senior Independent Member Sir William Fittall. 

They've been joined by Mrs Blondel Cluff (Sir William Herschel Grammar, Slough and LL.B University of Westminster), lawyer, jeweller, and wife of Algy Cluff, oilman and one-time owner of The Spectator. 

Also taking part: Catherine Baxendale (Dr Challoner's Grammar, Aylesbury and B.Sc, LSE) an HR consultant, formerly with Tesco and Procter & Gamble (brand manager for Pantene). She's written a report for the Cabinet Office on how to best manage senior talent moving from the private sector into the Civil Service. 

Guard changing

Lord Hall steps down as President of the European Broadcasting Union at the end of this year - but BBC Director of News Fran Unsworth steps up to the plate as new member of the Executive Board. Brexit ? Nous ? 

Influencer

More from Alan Yentob's evidence at the hearing in which the Insolvency Service is seeking to have him banned as a director, after the collapse of charity, Kids Company. The Times reports that he was asked about his appearance in the Today studio control room, as Camila Batmanghelidjh was being interviewed, at the height of the charity's financial crisis. 

"I heard that Camila was going to be on the Today programme. She had been asked to be on the Today programme, I think. I heard from the Today programme, who were quite keen that I did appear on it. But I didn’t. I did say as chair I would be there when Camila was there.”

Asked about a BBC investigation into whether the former BBC creative director and BBC One Controller had attempted to interfere in the coverage, he said: “The outcome of that was that I had not. This was a stressful, difficult time for the charity’s future. I thought if I were around, Camila would be temperate."

“Jim Naughtie [the presenter] said [my presence] made no impact on him. I didn’t interfere with the BBC’s processes.”

[Echoes of Princess Diana's reported letter to the BBC, saying 'documents' hadn't twisted her arm into giving Martin Bashir an interview ?]

Responsibilities

BBC presenter and editor Alan Yentob has been cross-examined by counsel for the Official Receiver, as the Insolvency Service seeks to disqualify him as a director, following the collapse of Kids Company. 

Again, the only reporter in court seems to be Steven Delahunty, for Third Sector. 

Lesley Anderson QC asked why the charity was “slogging so hard” for government funding all the time if, as Trustees had claimed, it had the support of many private donors ?

Mr Yentob said "We wanted to change the nature of the organisation ... and we believed it was the government’s responsibility [to fund the services], and if I may say so, so did many people in government.” 

He claimed that successive Prime Ministers including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron, all believed the charity needed to be funded.

In his affidavit to the court, Mr Yentob says “These disqualification proceedings are a profound and unjust humiliation for the trustees who gave years of dedication and commitment to supporting the most vulnerable in our society”.

Jab

Just a reminder to Nadim Zahawi. Labcold is closing for orders on December 18th for Christmas. 

The company was founded in 1932 as the Boro Dairy Laboratories & Appliance Company Limited, to test milk for small dairies in London. After WW2 they expanded into lab equipment suppliers, and changed name to Boro Laboratories and Appliance Company with a division specialising in cooling products called Labcold.

They offer six models of freezers that will store at -80c; two for under-bench use, two upright freezers and three chest freezers. 

Pfizer ships the vaccine in its own 'thermal shipper', each with 975 vials (5 trays of 195). It has to be used within 15 days of manufacture. Then they have five days' life in refrigerators. Each vial has enough for six doses, when diluted at the place of immunisation - then they have to be used within six hours. 

Intimacy and progression

 BBC DG Tim Davie this morning donned the White Trainers of Diversity for another round of initiatives.

Today's promises include: "Our teams will more regularly meet audiences in intimate in-depth sessions, to help build empathy and inform commissioning decisions. The sessions will be structured to facilitate more meaningful interactions than are currently possible in a traditional focus group setting. They will take place via video conference until in person meetings are possible."

"Launching an internal Progression Programme for diverse Commissioners that will consist of stretching and profile-raising opportunities to help deliver the skills and experience required at a senior level, along with the necessary sponsorship from selected senior leaders"

Tim

No sign of a formal announcement (is anyone opening James Purnell's post ?) but, according to both Private Eye and Linkedin, Tim Pemberton is the BBC's new Head of Religion and Ethics. 

Tim (Wheelers Lane, Birmingham and BA Philosophy & Religious Studies Lancaster) tried jobs with West Midlands Police and Birmingham Education department before being selected as a BBC trainee. He moved through producer at BBC Wales, Senior Producer Religion & Ethics, Managing Editor in Bristol, Executive Editor for Africa, BBC World Service, and most recently, running Radio Gloucestershire. 

From there, he's still been in touch with students at Lancaster. 

Steady on

The coiled spring that is the BBC Press Office, ready to rebut on a hair trigger, has finally had a go at Ofcom's survey which rates the BBC as lowest for impartiality, behind Sky News, Channel 4, ITV News and Channel 5. 

Their statement comes a full seven days after the report was published. 

Priority cars

You'd have thought that, across MediaCityUK, canalside views might have been at a premium. Developers Peel L&P are after planning permission for a multi-storey car park with room for 548 vehicles on plot E1 - on the left, below.

 

Licenced to ...

 News UK has got a licence from Ofcom for its tv channel, to be carried on satellite and cable.

News UK TV

Content:
Type of Service: Editorial

Licensee: News UK & Ireland Limited

Contact Details: Angus McBride
The News Building,1 London Bridge Street
London

Angus is the company's General Counsel. He came from posh solicitors Kingsley Napley in August 2016; he'd been part of Rebekah Brooks' defence team in the phone-hacking trial of 2014. Rebekah said when she signed him for News UK "I am thrilled that he has decided to join us as he is always ten steps ahead and has a huge capacity to grasp quickly the full spectrum of issues."

Bristol man promoted

Well I never - Rhodri Talfan Davies, 49 (RGS Newcastle; Jesus College, Oxford, then Cardiff School of Journalism) is the BBC's new Director of Nations, as well as hanging onto the title Director of BBC Cymru Wales. The BBC’s other Nations’ Directors (and competitors for the job) Helen Thomas in England, Peter Johnston in Northern Ireland and Steve Carson in Scotland - will all report to Rhodri, who sits on Tim Davie's Executive Committee.  

It's obviously a lower status job than that given to Ken MacQuarrie, who, as Director of Nations and Regions, sat on the BBC Board.  Presumably, at 68, he's now surprisingly redundant and entitled to at least £95k to leave. How close will Rhodri (currently on £190k) land to Ken's £325k ?   Is it a chance for another executive, say a new COO ?, to join the Big Board ?

BBC Director-General Tim Davie says: “Rhodri has been Director of BBC Wales for nine years, is an outstanding leader and will bring considerable editorial and strategic experience to this new role."

Incremental ?

The good folk at Radio Today seem to have got a longer version of the "Radio at Christmas" press release from the BBC.

It reveals that BBC Local Radio management has considerably reduced festive rota pressure. "Between Christmas and New Year, local stations will also syndicate from 6pm till 6am with Nana Akua from 6pm and Jim Davis from 10pm."

Be careful what you wish for - suits will be measuring the audience effect, through Alexa, Sounds etc. Some schedule changes are for life, not just Christmas...