Out

The enlightened regime currently burnishing China's international reputation have finally put such pressure on BBC Beijing correspondent John Sudworth and his wife Yvonne Murray (correspondent for RTE) that they've pulled out to Taiwan.  Their most recent visas lasted variously, one, three and six months. 18 foreign correspondents have been expelled from China in the past year. 

John was posted to China in 2012, developed Bell's Palsy for a year, but kept on broadcasting. He investigated the situation in Xinjiang from 2018 to 2020, reporting on the existence and spread of the Uighur detention camps, and then, at the invitation of the authorities, visiting 're-education' centres. Global Times, the preferred tabloid of the Chinese Communist Party, describes John as "someone with a serious political prejudice and a mental issue". 

BBC reporter @TheJohnSudworth who became infamous in #China for his biased stories on China’s #Xinjiang policies and #COVID19 response, is believed to be hiding in #Taiwan island after Xinjiang individuals plan to sue BBC for fake news: sources https://t.co/Mnzs3gBcor

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 31, 2021

Banking on Bluey

CBeebies is hoping that April sees the UK go mad for the animated adventures of an Australian Cattle Dog family, on every day from April 21. (Some pre-school kids will have already seen it on Disney+)

Bluey is a six-year-old Blue Heeler dog, "who loves to play, and turns everyday family life into extraordinary adventures that unfold in unpredictable and hilarious ways, bringing her family, friends and community into her world of fun."

It launched in Australia in 2018, and took the USA by storm in 2019, winning an International Emmy in 2020. It's backed by ABC and BBC Studios, who have worldwide distribution rights. 

There are books to follow, from Penguin, and magazines from Immediate Media; there's Bluey The Album coming in October, to follow the Bluey Theme Tune, out now. There will be soft toys, daywear and puzzles later in the year. Down under, Series 3 is in production. 

Easy as...

The single transferable vote system is complicated for many journalists to explain. 

Fran Unsworth at BBC News seems to have found it equally hard to explain to her disgruntled hacks how making them list in order their top three jobs, by location, will translate into a smaller, happier, more effective division. 

So the "Preference Survey", annnounced four weeks ago, has now been paused, whilst Fran and her colleagues go searching for 'greater clarity'. Once they've found where they put it, they promise to bring it back to the unions for further discussion. Sadly, Fran's sticking to her timetable - if you've done the survey already, that stays (I'd ask for two or three more attempts, wouldn't you ?) - and the deadline for completion is still 18th June.

From a distance, this process hardly looks like a triumph for News' interim HR director Kirsty Lee - though she may not be the one who dreamed up this barmy three favourite jobs idea. 

Senior

BBC Studios has appointed Penny Brough as a Senior Vice President in Brands and Marketing, where she will deputise for Chief Marketing Officer, Nicki Sheard. 

Penny, 44 (University of Central Lancashire) was previously in a similar job at Viacom CBS. In previous roles, she's marketed Lurpak, Vodafone, chewing gum and Yakult. 

Here's a picture of her during her time with W & K, on a visit to clients Nestea. 

Spinning

The Downing Street briefing room got its first airing yesterday, and was revealed as a tribute to posh coffin makers everywhere. 

The oversize lids rested against the led-lit walls, and clearly come out when say, the room is needed for a Prime Ministerial birthday disco. 

The high-tech podiums don't have the slide-clickers used in more advanced societies, with Professor Whitty's huge brain unchallenged by a level of multi-skilling required of vicars, college lecturers, Radio 2 disc-jockeys and more. 

Meanwhile the room's regular DJ, Allegra Stratton, continues to practice in private, spinning platters for lobby journalists without cameras. She confected an interesting defence for the Prime Minister's personal conduct as London Mayor, in matters Arcuri. Boris, she said "does believe in the wider principles of integrity and honesty. He acts with integrity and is honest. I’ve said that he follows the Nolan principles when conducting himself in public life."

Is this like 'time on' and 'time off' in rugby union ?  

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/29/downing-street-defends-boris-honesty-and-integrity-after-affair-allegations-14326006/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Still hiring

Kirsty Gallacher, 45 (St George's School, Ascot and London College of Fashion) is joining the Breakfast team at GB News. 

Where the money goes

The BBC is still predicting an increase in licence fee income over the next financial year, despite the nay-sayers who believe the Nation is turning its back on live tv. In the latest annual plan, published today, it forecasts a 4.6% rise in totals from the licence fee, using projections on household growth, TV penetration and evasion rates.

This translates into additional service spend, and you can see where things are going under Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore. Television's total us up 13.6% compared with last year, Online is up 13%, whilst  Radio (Network, Nations and Local) is blessed with a 2% increase.  

A nation of puzzlers

8.9m(40.5% share) of us followed Line of Duty Series 6 through to episode 2, on the eave of lockdown easing.  

Will we all still be necking it in the garden when Unforgotten finishes tonight on ITV ? The first episode rated at 5.1m in the overnights, but has consolidated to 9.5m in the 28-day ratings. 

Skill set

The various re-inventions of BBC Studios meant that last night's Imagine was a product of the Documentaries Unit, apparently rooted in Glasgow. Alan Yentob's extended interview with Kazuo Ishiguro was produced, directed and partially shot by Morag Tinto.  She's worked on Imagine before - Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley and more, but she now also turns her hand to the less cerebral This Farming Life. 

Mid-range gravity

Scotland's last minute victory over France turns out to have been John Inverdale's last gig as the BBC's principal rugby union host. In June he became Chairman of the National Clubs Association, the focal point for the 48 clubs that make up National Leagues One, 2N and 2S. He's also now their representative on the 60-strong Council of the RFU. 

John, 63 (Clifton College, Bristol; BA History, Southampton University; and NCTJ postgraduate journalism course at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff) played until at least the age of 48, when he was the victim of a stamping in a match between his club, Esher, and Staines Veterans. Press coverage at the time described the perpetrator as a 'rugby thug'. 

The RFU Disciplinary Panel ruled that, while the stamping was not deliberate, it could not properly be described as accidental. The alleged assailant, stand-off for Staines Veterans, had been reckless. The case was assessed as one of "mid-range gravity" and the player was suspended for 11 weeks.

All at sea

Never mind the Suez Canal - can someone at the BBC bring back Peter Snow and have him push some model boats around the UK as the Landbridge collapses ?

Ferry operators are no fools, and are proving more agile at problem solving for companies not interested in having freight moving between Ireland and Europe checked twice. Rosslare is already running 28 weekly services to or from mainland Europe, up from 10 last year.  The largest freight ferries are bound for Zeebrugge and Rotterdam. United Seaways is planning a new weekly service between Tangiers and Poole, to by-pass the EU entirely. It says it'll cut journey time from six days to three. CLdN is about re-instate a triangular route between Santander, Dublin and Liverpool.

This week a report from the Welsh Government warned Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke are at risk. Irish freight operators suggest closing either Fishguard or Pembroke, so that if you miss a ferry because of Euro red tape, you're not marooned for 12 hours. 

Values

Latest signing to the GB News production team: Liam Deacon, 27 (Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School, Ayelsebury, BA Philosophy University of Sheffield), most recently working in comms for the First Property Group (CEO former Brexit MEP Ben Habib) and as Press Officer for #defundthebbc. 

He was a staff writer for Breitbart for three years, majoring on immigration stories. He later explained "It was my first full-time job in an industry that is overstretched and underfunded. Reporting on a subject is different from supporting a subject. I do not, and did not, support the individuals or organisations mentioned". He then did 10 months with the Daily Star's online team, and nearly two years with the press team of the Brexit Party. 

In September last year, he wrote for The Critic: 'Why is it the BBC has a dedicated “gender and identity” correspondent but not an “illegal immigration” one?'.  Perhaps Liam will fulfil that role for Andrew Neil.

Moving at pace

The New York Times has some new info on BBC Sounds. It says it now has 3.7 million weekly users and two thirds of their listening time is spent on live radio.

And what of the promise that the BBC app will host content produced by others ? Controller BBC Sounds Jonathan Wall says that a select number of outside podcasts will be carried 'by the middle of next year'.  This move was announced as a commitment in March 2019 by James Purnell, talking about making the title just "Sounds".  Agile ou quoi ?

Confused

MG ALBA is the operating name of Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig, or Gaelic Media Service, which was formed under the Communications Act 2003.

BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba.

Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland.

Alba translates as dawn/sunrise in Spanish, Catalan and Italian. 

Alba is an budget electronics brand, now owned by Sainsbury's. It started when A J Balcombe began manufacturing radios and gramophones in 1922, from Tabernacle Street, London EC2 - now at the heart of "Tech City". 

Disruptors

But will Simon McCoy be happy at GB News ?  The BBC News Channel's funding is under a permanent squeeze. McCoy fought hard to get his name on the 'masthead' of  Afternoon Live, but could get no guarantees that it would be his slot forever. It currently goes to air with a Programme Editor and a Senior Broadcast Journalist, plus half a Broadcast Journalist, providing the content for three hours. It can, however, call on some of the BBC's 6,000 strong News Division for support. 

At GB News, we're told total staffing is between 120 and 140. In the gallery will be a Studio Pilot (aka transmission engineer) ready to roll with half-an-hour of stuff they've lined up in the previous half hour. Normally you want people with ice in their veins for this sort of stress, but GB News want something different... 

"Reporting to the London Technical Manager you will be a disruptor and an innovator who approaches news production in an innovative way shaking things up behind the screen as well as on it, changing the way television and digital content is produced."

• Will Simon have left with the maximum £150k redundancy ?  Just, on a salary of £160k....

Temple of Arts, Music, and, er, Factual

BBC Content Boss Charlotte Moore has blessed BBC Arts and Music with a new, incomprehensible structure that doesn't mention Alan Yentob.  

Patrick Holland, body double for Harry Hill, zooming in from Brighton, gets a longer title - Director of  Factual, Arts and Classical Music. (The news release stresses he's been a luvvie all the time, despite the hard nut nature of Factual). Below him will be a new Head Of Arts And Classical Music and "a dedicated TV commissioner responsible for the BBC Proms and classical music on TV" who will be told to play nicely with Alan Davey Controller Radio 3, and perhaps even acknowledge David Pickard, Proms Director. 

In Pop Music, Lorna Clarke, Controller Pop Music gets a Commissioning Editor, a Commissioning Executive and an Assistant Commissioner to look after tv.

This seems to bust apart the role of Jan Younghusband and her two colleagues, up to now responsible for commissioning all forms of music on tv. 

• It's possible that Ms Moore's very extensive answers to the Commons Public Accounts Committee on Monday were not evidence of a tendency to drone on, but a deliberate strategy to soak up time. Possible.  

Wavers

Is it disappointing to discover that Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden is spineless, caving into demands from his master and mentor Boris Johnson that we should have more respect for the Union Flag around the UK ?

Mr Dowden has no pictures of the flag on his constituency website. His colleague in requiring more flags, Mr Robert Jenrick, breaks flag protocol on Zoom, which determines that, on a speaker platform, when there is only one Union Flag, it should be placed to the left of the speaker, as seen from the audience. 

Mr Jenrick's website  features the unauthorised Conservative Party logo, in which the blue tree is filled in with a Union Flag - but there are no other pictures. 

The new exhortation to the outsourcers running facilities at public buildings allows the exciting prospect of 'dual flagging', in which two flags on one pole creates the classy look of a petrol station forecourt. 

The gov.uk website, which includes latest flag guidance, is picture light, and there are no Union Flags in some 3,950,000 pages. 

Well done

In one of its first completed reports under the chairmanship of Julian "Media For Dummies" Knight MP, the DCMS Select Committee has produced a sensible and useful report on the future of public service broadcasters.  One suspects the crafting and direction of Professor Catherine Johnson from Hull University and Joey Jones, formerly of Sky News, has helped. 

There's very little the BBC will be unhappy about - universality of provision celebrated, trusted news essential, and a recognition that you can't really change from Licence Fee funding until there's universal provision of broadcast-capable broadband. It warns the Government off decriminalisation, and accepts all the PSB's arguments about prominence of their content on other providers' TV guides. There's one rather churlish remark about not moving BBC educational programming onto terrestrial tv fast enough in the pandemic, which, considering the speed of the Bitesize response, is deeply ungracious. 

One new suggestion is that Netflix, Amazon and others should be made to release audience figures for content that started life with PSBs....

We recommend the Government impose two specific requirements in relation to PSB content hosted on other streaming services in new media legislation. First, PSB content should be clearly labelled as such and branded with the logo of the PSB from which the content originated. Secondly, streaming services should be required to share top line viewing data—at the very least, the number of viewers—for PSB content they host with Ofcom and the relevant PSBs to enable full analysis of PSB reach, and the audio-visual landscape as a whole.

News from the paddock

BBC news presenter Simon McCoy, a stayer of 18 years, has told Twitter followers this morning he's about to enter the unsaddling enclosure at the News Channel. 

McCoy, 59 (Sherborne and Highbury College, Portsmouth) has only just returned to our screens this week, from a period sequestered with his partner, Emma Samms, who has long Covid. The Mail has suggested they may marry. 

McCoy has become the in-house specialist at leavening the dough of the soggy news cycle, and mastered the art of cheeky tweets without falling foul of the Flag Police. In January last year, we estimated six presenters had to go - since then we've only lost Carrie Gracie, Rachel Schofield and, now McCoy.  Not the obvious ones to go if you're seeking engagement with audiences. 

The Chiltern Chugger

BBC DG Tim Davie turns wildlife presenter for an upcoming online meeting of The Chiltern Society. Tim likes a long run and a challenge, so over the past two years, he's tried to cover every mile of path on Ordnance Survey map 171 (which is over 590 square kms).  In the end he ran over 750 miles of footpath (and back) knocking up an estimated total mileage above 1,500 - equivalent to a four mile run every day. 

Don't worry, the slides are not just our hero in shorts, but his photographic record of the wildife that caught his eye along the routes. 

More into line

Boris's political thinking comes closest to the surface when he adlibs, in response to the Flag-Checkers of the 1922 Committee.  

'We need to recognise on the whole that there is a great deal of instinctual metropolitan bias in the BBC newsroom. It's pretty clear from the whole Brexit experience that the BBC was pretty detached from a lot of its viewers and listeners and I hope they move more into line. We need to think about that with all the commonsensical ways we have.'

All Rosie

The latest signing for GB News is Rosie Wright, who will appear somewhere in Paddington at breakfast time, in June or July. 

Rosie has an extensive, if repetitive, showreel from her time with Euronews in Lyon, where she also conducted the International Choir.  She previously spent time with Premier Radio.

 

 

Enforcement issues

It's a good job the reporters and sub-editors of Mail Online are not subject to Ofcom.  Today's story on BBC licence fee enforcement takes a number of liberties, including a stock, posed photo of a person at the door of an elderly woman. 

The headline talks about 'bully boys'.  All but one of their case histories consist of the elderly receiving letters about the licence fee. In just one, the allegation is that someone from Capita came to a house, not photographed: "Another elderly dementia sufferer reported enforcement agents twice turning up at her home." The only subsequent reference talks about one visit - "Just weeks later an agent turned up at her door."

It's possible that this was a visit to a new address, and Capita genuinely didn't know the age of the occupant. The woman's son says he sent in a notice of  "Removal of Implied Rights of Access", which Capita would normally comply with. But we don't know when this happened - Tim Davie and others have promised that no agents will visit over-75s on their doorsteps without an appointment. 

Securing the ship

It feels like new Output Boss, Jamie Angus is quickly sorting a few things out in the BBC News presentation team. He returns to domestic news (plus BBC World) after the executive squeeze which stands to lose Kamal Ahmed - with possible diversity consequences. 

It was Jamie who brought Mishal Husain to Today programme presentation. In the past week, we've seen Amol Rajan berthed there too, at a time when others may have been seeking his signature. And now Clive Myrie has a good portfolio deal. 

Over at BBC World, Ros Atkins' series of story situation reports is now getting a run out on BBC Breakfast at weekends. I suspect there may be more progress for Ros in the months ahead. 

More me

I wonder if, in lockdown, BBC Controllers still have informal chats with presenters. I'm guessing that if Mohit Bakaya, Controller of Radio 4, had a virtual Pinot Grigio with Emma Barnett, she might suggest a saving. I detect even less love for the 15 minute drama serial that slips into the end of Woman's Hour than previous presenters. 

Strewth

BBC Studios, under-interim-leader-looking-more-and-more-likely-to-be-permanent, Tom Fussell, is making some biggish strategic bets. It's now advertised for a Head of Production and Operations, BBC Studios, Australia, promising the selected candidate an Aus$ 20m budget - that's just over £11m. 

The job is based in the leafy Sydney suburb of McMahon's Point, a burgeoning media district. Available on a year's contract. 

Up the pole

If only I'd stayed the course. Flags were waved at the Public Accounts Committee grilling of the BBC yesterday.

Today @CommonsPAC scrutinised the BBC on its strategy. As well as asking about licence fee, commercial income, and efficiency, I asked about 🇬🇧 as I cldnt spot any in its 268 page Annual Report - maybe this year’s will pic.twitter.com/oUjVFO7NbZ

— James Wild MP for NW Norfolk (@jamesowild) March 22, 2021

James Wild, 43, was born in Norwich and grew up in North Walsham. He went to Norwich School for nine years on an assisted place - this makes him an Old Norvicensian. He proceeded to Queen Mary College, University of London, emerging with a BA in Politics.  He worked in PR roles with The Communication Group, Politics Direct, T-Mobile and Hanover, before embarking on a series of roles as a Government special adviser in 2012. It culminated in five months alongside Boris Johnson - James was elected in December 2019 as the MP for North West Norfolk. 

He met his wife Natalie in Conservative Central Office; she's now Leader of the House of Lords. The couple have no children, and live in Bowes Park. Both have season tickets for Norwich FC.

James has no visible tattoos, but an clear intuitive feel for what the licence-fee payers of King's Lynn expect from the BBC. 

Talkability

BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore parked the bus in her first big appearance in front of MPs on the Public Accounts Committee this afternoon. Her first answer lasted an impressive 6 minutes 50 seconds, responding largely to questions she asked herself. 

DG Tim Davie was regularly and often 'very clear' about 'jeopardy'.  He faced opening bowler Gareth Bacon, Conservative MP for Orpington, who pointedly had a Union flag in his Zoom backdrop. Mr Bacon is among those who want a firm reprimand for BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty who, they feel, made light of loyalty to said flag by liking the wrong things on Twitter.  This issue wasn't raised - at least as I listened to the first hour.  

Progress

The beatification of Clive Myrie continues, as, just six weeks after John Humphrys announces his departure from Mastermind, Clive boosts his current £215k pa by taking over the quizmaster's chair.

I can find no previous trace of Clive hosting a quiz, though he has been a panellist on Celebrity Eggheads, Richard Osman's House of Games, Would I Lie To You ? and Have I Got News For You ?

How will he fare ?  'Ordinary' Mastermind has fallen behind Only Connect and University Challenge, returning around 2m audiences rather than 3m. 'Celebrity' Mastermind can reach over 6m, on the right day.

Gearing up

It may have benefited from the Line of Duty audience settling into their seats, but Top Gear returned an impressive 5m in the overnight ratings last night. When Clarkson, Hammond and May said goodbye in 2015, that attracted 5.3m viewers, and through Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc, there's been nothing like it since..until now. 

Eyes everywhere

Oi ! BBC Branding Police ! A correspondent down under notes the impending arrival of a new BBC service delivered by Fetch, an iptv box supplier, owned by a Malaysian company. Fetch boxes ("The Mini" and "The Mighty" aggregate up to 45 services, and have around a million subscribers. 

The blocks aren't right, and the font is not Gill Sans. Are they edging Reith in, and moving the blocks further apart ?

LoD

Human Intel for Season 6 of Line of Duty, Episode 1: 9.56m, according to the overnight ratings. Season 4 started at 5.4m, and Season 5 at 7.8m. 

Your money questions answered

The BBC's on parade in front of MPs this afternoon. The Public Accounts Committee is considering the organisation's "Strategic Financial Management"; DG Tim Davie will be accompanied by Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore, carrying the Line of Duty Acronyms Decoded Booklet, and Glyn Isherwood, appearing as Interim Chief Operating Officer. The real Chief Operating Officer, Leigh Tavaziva, who joined in February, is kept on the bench. I'm mildly surprised that the financial brain of new chairman Richard Sharp doesn't get a run out.  

Will the MPs recognise that the BBC's financial planning is largely in the flabby hands of a Government that uses threats to income as a way of bullying the organisation ?  The handing over of the sticky end of the sticky stick of over-75 free licences, the threat, now withdrawn, to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee, the day-to-day worry over continuing FCO funding of additional World Service output, and the current mid-Charter review that will end, one hopes, with a new licence fee deal early in 2022. 

Impact

Has anyone in BBC News senior management written down how moving Newsbeat to Birmingham will make it better for listeners ?

The BBC Director General has just told hundreds of staff their jobs are being moved to different cities, but it's OK because he then showed us a trailer for the new Line of Duty series "after a long two years" 🙃

— Daniel Rosney (@DanielRosney) March 18, 2021

Understatement to say it’s been a tough & unsettling week for the whole @BBCNewsbeat team. We’ve all got big decisions to make about our futures.

But one thing never in question is our passion for the job. You couldn’t ask for better workmates. Deserves a cheesy gif: pic.twitter.com/iCUG1jhGWX

— Steve Holden (@SteveHReports) March 19, 2021

Our @BBCNewsbeat team are talented, creative and genuinely care about young people. We make cracking radio, docs, tv, podcasts, digital, social - the list goes on. There’s simply not an equivalent job. Uprooting to Birmingham won’t work for the majority of us. Tough to digest.

— Shiona McCallum (@shionamc) March 19, 2021

It’s a day for going down the pub with my brilliant @bbcnewsbeat colleagues. I really want to be down the pub.

— Paul Stanworth (@paulstanworth) March 18, 2021

Interpretation

Whilst both Content and Output seek to eliminate duplication at BBC News, a regular reader notes that, on last night's 10pm news on BBC, the headline clip of French ICU doctor, Abdid Ward, was translated by a Scottish voice; but the same clip in Lucy Williamson's lead package featured a different voice, perhaps a native French speaker using English. Don't tell the Daily Express. 

Purple Bricks

Property disposals are a driver of the BBC's piecemeal plan to move more out of London. The long lease on Wogan (née Western House) House, with a presence on Great Portland Street, could bring in some dosh. Thus occupants from 6Music are off to Salford, and some key Radio 2 stuff will be dispersed (without much trouble, as most key presenters now have home studios outside the M25).  What remains of Radio 2 can move into space in Broadcasting House vacated by The Asian Network (re-grouping in Birmingham) and by Radio 1 budging up. 

Entertainingly, the Head of The Asian Network does not intend to join his programme makers on the Grand Voyage North.... 

New Direction

You may have spotted, in my flurry of grumpy posts about the BBC's six year plan to move more out of London, that I asked who would actually make the decision about where the Concert Orchestra turns up. 

The dynamic new 'no wheel-spin' BBC Executive has deferred the call to a new post - Orchestra Director, BBC Concert Orchestra. It's graded at Band F, not even "Senior Leader", and for somewhere in the range  £61,608 - £112,948, the successful candidate will provide a solution and be responsible for delivery. 

He or she will replace the excellent Andrew Connolly, who's packed it in after 20 years with the CO, and previous experience managing the Royal Philharmonic Pops and orchestra of Welsh National Opera. 

 

Will's away

"I am absolutely delighted to be joining the Barbican as its Director of Arts and Learning after eleven very happy years as the BBC’s Arts Editor."

Thus Will Gompertz, 55 (left Bedford School before A-levels to be a stagehand at Sadlers Wells, now a Noel Gay artiste) on his next career move. The Barbican is run by former BBC Radio 3 Controller Nick Kenyon, who is now 70. 

On the learning front, Will has a way to go on punctuation. 

This is the painting that got me into art. Willem de Kooning’s ‘Rosy Fingered Dawn at Louse Point’ (1963). I loved it when I first saw it ⁦⁦@Stedelijk⁩ all those years ago and I still love it today. A perfect picture for early spring. pic.twitter.com/Jus3stSUDE

— Will Gompertz (@WillGompertzBBC) February 18, 2019

90 days

Still no social media sightings of tradespeople knocking up tv studios in the Paddington area. We know GB News won't make it to air in March; but it has secured a Freeview listing, which has to be in operation by 18th June - even if it only broadcasts a looped trailer. 

At number 236, it nestles amongst some interesting bedfellows. 

234 Russia Today

235 Al Jazeera

250 BBC Red Button

252 Kiss Chat & Date

253 Proud Dating. 

Renaissance man

Another gripping hire for GB News - radical, free-speaking stand-up and pro-Brexit Corbynista Andrew Doyle gets a weekly show.  He has a doctorate in Renaissance poetry from Wadham College, Oxford. His appointment with the nascent tv channel has been welcomed by Darren Grimes and Calvin Robinson.

Here he is in rivetting conversation with Peter Whittle, formerly of UKIP, now representing the Brexit Alliance in the London Assembly. 

I had a really enjoyable discussion with @prwhittle about my new book "Free Speech and Why It Matters" for @NewCultureForum. https://t.co/QvtJ35yuTN

— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) March 17, 2021

How news will be made

Quite the longest of yesterday's explanatory missives about how BBC News will work with 500 fewer staff comes from UK News Content (née UK Newsgathering).  It's about three pages long. Normally, when I'm looking for examples of over-written blah from the BBC, I have to choose bits.  I could have chosen any of it... 

The On the Day team will be our 24/7 central logistical and content hub, bringing together deployments, gathering and content sharing. It will support all our output and editorial teams on the day’s main UK and international stories – particularly breaking and developing news, and provide material to outlets, be that copy, stills or other content. It brings together functions currently spread across UK and World Newsgathering, News Intake, Operations, and some output teams. It will focus on the day’s top UK and global developing and breaking stories, as agreed at the day’s key editorial meetings, and be the point of contact with Story teams and Outlets, taking an overview of how specialist resources are being used. Specifically, this means: co-ordinating breaking news information, deployments, gathering and distribution of ready-to-run content to all outlets – focusing on key copy, footage, audio/video clips, stills, guests and contributors, UGC, BBC expert analysis and graphics. The multi-skilled team will be organised around ‘Live’, ‘Content’ and ‘Production’ – with UK and global-facing roles, and new multiskilled Journalist and Journalism Researcher roles. The aim of this new working and staffing model, which has been tested over recent months, is to reduce duplication, simplify our processes and improve communication and speed.

News staff have been issued with invitations to follow-up HR and Wellbeing Sessions on Zoom. It makes you want to cry.

Continuing drama

Scene: A month ago, in the third floor Jan Leeming meeting room at Broadcasting House. Nearly home time. Around the table, a selection of tired News Content executives... 

"So that's something for everything on the checklist - Salford, Cardiff, Birmingham, and, thanks to Declan, the wizard wheeze of Leeds. That'll catch Tim's eye...."

"Hang on....Glasgow ?"

"Glasgow ... I thought we'd done that..."

"Nope. Nothing. Nada"

"OK, who've we got left ?"

"Health". 

"We can't send them. Fergus is in Windsor, Hugh's in Queen's Park. We'd lose them before the winter wave. Anyway, it's bad enough doing vox pops with patients in masks; imagine if they were Glaswegian as well..."

"Society"

"That's new isn't ?  Aren't we getting a new Social Affairs Editor ?  Will anyone apply if we base it in Glasgow ?"

"Culture"

"Can we afford an armed guard for Gompertz ? How's he going to do pieces on hip-hop ballet from there ?"

"Technology". 

"Is there any technology in Glasgow ?"

"Some video games stuff. A bit of satellite". 

"Perfect"

"We could send Click as well"

"What's Click ?"

"You know - that weekly show on BBC World. Goes out on Breakfast at the weekends. Huge worldwide audience - and the Breakfast thing; remember Newswatch and Samira Ahmed ?"

"Brilliant. Send them as well. OK, see you all tomorrow".  

Hobson's Choices

If BBC News gets a little shaky over the next couple of days, that's because, underneath the verbiage of strategic change and outreach (of which more later), the latest plan is really about putting 500 people out of work. And, as only BBC News can, they've invented a peculiar former of HR torture to deliver that result. 

As in previous years, there's a trawl for volunteers to leave (with the pay-off cap still standing at £150k). You've got less than a month to make your mind up on that.  

The All New 2021 Thumbscrew is requiring everyone below management level in Network News and World Service English "to tell us which three preferred areas or teams in the new structure you’d like to work in. This could be your existing or most equivalent team, or something completely different - a new location or department in News. We’re calling this process the ‘Preference Survey’. "

What use can this be ? I hope the Union advises everyone to write, first, their own, job; second, Huw Edward's job; third: Amol Rajan's jobs.  

B minus

If you want evidence that it's a bad idea for someone from an entirely tv background to supervise network radio, then today's moves announced by DG Tim Davie make the point. 

The tv contribution to this exercise is minimal. There will be five new junior 'commissioners' in the Nations and Regions. The tv target is for 60% by value of commissions to be spent outside London by 2027 - that's up from the current target of 50%. There'll be one new continuing drama from the north of England and one from the Nations. It's not clear whether or not they'll live alongside Casualty (Cardiff) or Holby City (just inside the M25). No move of decision-making at any senior level outside London - not even for funky BBC3. 

In radio, the move is from below 40% of network spend outside London to 50%.  50% of Radio 3 production moves to Salford, which will be an 'epicentre', yet not quite throbbing enough to require the full-time attendance of a Controller. 'The majority' of 6Music will, 'over time', move to Salford.  Newsbeat and The Asian Network are told to get out of London, and meet up in Birmingham. The Radio Science production team are sent to Cardiff, alongside the BBC Climate and Science news teams. "Our business output will be more reflective of the UK, with all our key morning output coming from an enlarged Business unit in Salford." Has anyone told the Kiwi who does Today ?

Digital and technology teams who previously hung on to space at White City will head to Salford. Yet the BBC News Technology team are bound for Glasgow; I suspect there'll be quite a turnover there.  Education News moves further away from Gavin Williamson, to Leeds. There also be some sort of investigative news unit there - from the patch that brought you the Sir Cliff Richard exclusive. 

It's a very poor 13-page document for a proper 6-year strategy. How much, someone should ask, has been set aside for 're-structuring' ? And what is the target headcount in 2027/28 ?  Who decides where the Concert Orchestra finally turns up ?  Will it cost more or less to present 100 editions of Today around the UK - and will it be, effectively, every Saturday with Justin Webb in those echoey university canteens ?   Any thought about the quality of output here ?

https://t.co/H05Yb62kIv Bit of a tricky day for us on the @BBCTech team, having been told we have to move to Glasgow. It's a great city, but many of us not at the stage in life where we can uproot our families

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) March 18, 2021

Growth areas

One way to avoid enforced relocation at the BBC is to find another job inside the organisation, quick. 

Half of the ten most recent advertised jobs at Auntie are based abroad - Singapore, Los Angeles, Sydney and New York (2 posts). 

Manoeuvres

In the last century, BBC Director General Greg Dyke acceded to a Labour Government's request to put more public money (the licence fee) to work where there were Labour voters. Thus MediaCityUK, Salford. 

There'll be no new buildings on that scale today, but current BBC DG, TA Corporal Tim Davie will mimic Field Marshal Gove establishing barracks in Glasgow, Quartermaster Sunak setting up camp in Darlington (handy for passing Global CEO's, financiers and bankers) and Major General Raab with a small fort festooned with Union Jacks in East Kilbride. 

It's apparently part of a six year plan. Hard to write financially, when there's a licence fee review stuck in the middle. 

Your favourite blogger will be away from the keyboard at the moment of revelation. Here are some guesses - BBC Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys has spent much of lockdown working from a base near Wrexham, so the Education Cluster will move to - er, Leeds. Britain's top scientists are based in London, Cambridge and Oxford, so the Science and Environment team will move to, er, Bristol, where Natural History camera teams who film meerkats have lockers. Much of speech radio production based in London, who have had specialist studios built to world-beating standards in Broadcasting House, will be dispersed. Some elements of drama - tv, radio and commissioning - are heading to Digbeth. 

One guarantee - the Policy and Strategy teams, responsible for this, will still be in London. The moves aren't strategic; they're piecemeal gestures, designed to show Tim Davie as an action man.  They're not going to please a large number of creative staff already uncertain that the BBC is the thoughtful employer it used to be. Footsoldiers moved to pleased paymasters, not to make better programmes.  

In charge

BBC1 has a new minder. The title is Portfolio Director, and the job has gone to Syeda Irtizaali. 

Syeda likes Whispering Angel rosé, and her most recent commission for BBC1 has been Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance. You may not have seen it - not many have. 

Blockwork

PVH, owners of Clavin Klein, have signed a deal to take space in a yet-to-be built addition to the Television Centre site in Shepherd's Bush. It looks to be on the site of the old catering block, at the back. Stylish, huh ?

Meanwhile the developers are pressing ahead with another elegant addition on the White City site. This massive lump is where the BBC once proposed a new home for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It replaces a temporary car park, on which I collaborated as a non-democratically-elected user representative.

Nice

The BBC's Clive Myrie has found time to make a 10-part jazz documentary series, not for Alan Davey at Radio 3, or Miss Helen Thomas at Radio 2, but for Jazz FM. 

Modestly titled The Definitive History of Jazz In Britain, it starts on 4 April, Easter Sunday, and will explore the last century decade by decade - starting in 1919 when the ‘Original Dixieland Jass Band’ visited London’s Hippodrome for the first official performance of jazz music in the UK. The programme, produced by Ashley Byrne of MIM (Made In Manchester), has been made with money from the Audio Content Fund, channeling tax payer funding. 

Can it possibly be more comprehensive than Russell Davies' 1999 series for Radio 3, "Jazz Century", in a remarkable 52 parts ? 

 

Skelly's movements

Fans of Ian Skelly ( I know some) may be interested to listen back to his gentle forcing-of-the-hand of the Radio 3 Press Office, as he started his Monday morning edition of Essential Classics.

tradingaswdr · Ian Skelly annnounces....

Crossed Lines

As we head for Line of Duty 6, a reminder of who gets credit, and who gets dosh. It's made by World Productions, owned by ITV Studios, who for the first time with this series are handling international distribution.  In Australia, it'll be shown first on Britbox, co-owned by ITV and BBC; series 1-5 were available through local Aussie streamer, Stan. 

In the States, Line of Duty has previously been available on AMC streaming service Acorn TV (who have taken Bloodlands), and, at various times, on and off Netflix. Will Britbox claim a premiere this time ? 

If you'd like an old-fashioned DVD, it's available from 17th May.

Bouncing

A small changing of the old guard at Radio 6 Music, by new boss Samantha Moy. Liz Kershaw, 62, loses her regular Saturday show for a Sunday afternoon 'series' about 'Legends'.  In comes Jamz Supernova aka Jamilla Urbi Walters, 31, a product of The Brit School in Croydon, who joined the BBC as an intern aged 19. 

Ms Supernova is now based in Crystal Palace, and has a registered trademark, Future Bounce. 

How tv news works now

The administrators of the BBC's News Content department are tightening their grip around the Flabby Neck of News Output. Last night's BBC 6 O'Clock bulletin on BBC1 was a little light news (things that have happened that might be interesting or surprising) propped up with diary and anniversary coverage. 

Close to six minutes was devoted to Laura Kuenssberg's mini-Covid-Panorama, with our news stewardess placed in an unlit basement surrounded by discarded-but-working tv screens. Someone had tried to extrude a "news" cue out of her startling research: "Senior Government officials have told this programme that lockdown could have come earlier". Unfortunately, no-one said that into a microphone. Laura made do with Line-of-Duty style interview clips with Hancock, Starmer et al, and the sum total of human knowledge was moved on not a jot. 

Then followed a run round the horse racing course with in-house trainer Dan Roan. Two minutes 10 seconds, in which we learned there was a meeting at Cheltenham the next day. And to wrap things up, Arts Editor Will Gompertz got three minutes with a film critic guessing who was going to win the Oscars, from a list of films that only Will and the critic had seen.  Come in out of the kitchen, luv, this stuff's riveting. 

Earlier, Home Editor Mark Easton spend some time empathising with the police's difficulties in managing demonstrations/vigils in a pandemic. It would have been more useful if Mark had pursued the "extensive discussions" that the Home Secretary had with Cressida Dick before the Clapham Bandstand trouble. I'm sure she told Ms Dick "Light touch stuff only, Cressie". 

Game on

Evidence arrives that BBC Radio executives still have clues about audience patterns, despite a lack of RAJAR figures. 

Civil servant-turned-radio controller Alan Davey has struggled with mid morning ratings since dispensing with the services of friendly, demotic Rob Cowan on Essential Classics in 2017. At the time it was billed as the station's 'most listened to' programme. Cowan's replacement was long-serving network announcer Ian Skelly, who has a sideline writing speeches for Prince Charles. 

Now Ian moves to the afternoons, to be part of a team of four who introduce an afternoon concert, and then largely let you just listen.  Essential Classics will now be shared between Georgia Mann and Suzy Klein. 

Since May last year, Alexander Armstrong has been hosting 9am to 12pm at Classic FM; they probably know what's happening to audience figures, too.

Plotter

If Goliath found Goliath, how can there be another series ?

The case for a second run of Bloodlands on BBC1 is easy to understand. Seven-day viewing figures of the four-parter stand at 7.8m for episode 1 and 7.2m for episode 2. Writer Chris Brandon had the series in shape five years ago; when Jed Mercurio took it up, it morphed from six to four parts. 

Chris was brought up in Strangford, largely by his grandparents, went to boarding school in England and then Trinity College, Dublin.  Acting was his first chosen career: 'Fusilier' in Soldier Soldier, 'Hunter' in Heat of the Sun, rising, in 2012, to Alexander Reece in the pilot episode of Endeavour. 

Beached ?

From the Economist...

Launching in a pandemic is proving tricky. GB News had hoped to be on air this month, but has hired just 20 of a planned staff of 140 and has yet to build a studio. Mr Neil is stuck at home in France. The channel now aims to launch before July, when people may want to escape their screens.

Indeed. The clear business opportunity of a locked-down audience should be on the beach by the time this gets on air.

Late with the rota

No sign as yet from ITV as to who will be in the chair for Monday's Good Morning Britain.  Piers Morgan worked Monday to Wednesday. There's probably enough spare time in the team of Susanna Reid, Kate Garraway, Ranvir Singh, Ben Shephard and Charlotte Hawkins to keep going for a while. Regular holiday stand-ins have included Adil Ray and Richard Madeley. 

The press (or perhaps agents) have suggested Robert 'Judge' Rinder and Victoria Derbyshire. Given Piers Morgan's slightly volatile attitude to contracts, one presumes the production team have a succession strategy - and it probably includes some big names. But recent recruitments for GB News and News UK suggest there is not necessarily a wealth of talent out there. 

Shareable names welcome. 

Calming down

Congratulations to former Beeboid Thea Rogers on the journey to the impending serenity of motherhood with her beau George Osborne. 

Whilst acquiring her degree in modern languages (she has French parentage) and philosophy at Oxford, she found time for Union debates, notably opposing Big Brother Celebrity Nick Bateman on the the motion "This House would rather be nasty than nice". 

There was clearly a darker period in her time at George's side in the Treasury, where disloyal officials told the Mail she "shouts and swears like the TV spin on-screen PR guru Malcolm Tucker, leaving colleagues in tears ..."

Growth down under....

I'm not sure of the size of the BBC Studios operation in Australia, but it now seems they're big enough to require an HR team of at least three.

Really ?

Is it possible that GB News (chairman Andrew Neil) will fail to make its first significant deadline ?

Has anyone seen activity around Paddington that looks anything like the construction of a tv news channel ?

March 2021 https://t.co/qHmm6S3bdi

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) November 13, 2020

Pattern

Liam Halligan, co-author of the seminal handbook Clean Brexit (foreword Gisela Stuart, postword Jacob Rees-Mogg) will be the lunchtime host on GB News.

Liam brings the business sense acquired from the St Antony's, Oxford College Ball Committee, plus six years with Prosperity Capital Management, the UK's largest investor in Russia, to the job. He's had two spells with Channel 4, and will maintain his commitments to the Telegraph. 

He plays guitar in the family band. 

Comparison

A series low for Bank Balance on BBC1 last night, with an average audience of 1.2m in the overnights. When Eggheads was last on BBC2 in June, it scored 1.4m.....

Egged on

Meanwhile, as tremors move through the key quiz show genre, Jeremy Vine's vital Egghead earnings survive. The show has been dropped by the BBC - new editions ran out in June last year - but has been bought by Channel 5, who promise a slot between 6pm and 8pm. The programme, conceived by indie 12 Yards in 2003, has been under the wing of ITV Studios since 2008, when they bought the company. 

Plus and minus

The give and take of an agent's life:  Mary Greenham represents Amol Rajan, who becomes the 5th Today presenter.  Mary Greenham represents Sarah Smith, who will lose Today shifts with the arrival of Amol. 

Mashed

The Mash Report will not be coming back for a fifth series. A BBC spokesperson told The Sun (Why The Sun first ?) it had run its course.  There is no press release. 

The suspicion is that new DG Tim Davie agreed with The King of Broadcasting, Andrew Neil, who condemned the show in a series of tweets from the wine-rich South Of France back in 2018. ‘If you think Mash or the Now show is funny as opposed to contrived ideological commentary then we have a different sense of humour'. When someone said the show also featured right wing stand-up Geoff Norcott, he wasn't impressed : 'For three minutes out of thirty minutes of self satisfied, self adulatory, unchallenged left wing propaganda. It’s hardly balance. Could never happen on a politics show. Except this has become a politics show.’

There's no evidence of failure in the audience figures - largely better than slot average for BBC2 at 10pm. And it's proved useful to chunk up in the pandemic, when Newsnight had to move to 2245. Indeed, the chunks of the MASH report are amongst the BBC's most successful bits on social media. 12m Facebook views for Gender Equality; 42m Facebook views and 2.1m YouTube hits for Rachel Parris on sexual harassment; 6.4m YouTube for Northerners accused of saying 'hello'. Even Andrew Neil can stomach chunks. 

This is very funny, despite what some will see as the calumny against PC World and its managers. https://t.co/Hy1v5GUY3y

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) May 9, 2020

Proportionate response

May I offer another example of the tail wagging the BBC Commissioning Dog in the hunt for "yoof" audiences ? The irredeemably awful quiz and fairground game show, The Wall, is coming back for another series because: "The latest series has averaged 3.3m on 30-Day All Screens for All Audiences, peaking at 4.2m for the fifth episode and the most recent series has seen the highest episode to date for young audiences." 

Desperate. Perhaps they could tell us the exact proportion of 'young audience' that is a  now measure of success at the BBC ? 

Fast talking

A whole new world of opportunities for the next generation of BAME presenters at the BBC opens with the slight narrowing of career focus by Amol Rajan, joining the Today presentation team on Radio 4. 

Finally, he's moving away from the fluffy stuff.  No longer can the producers of The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show and The Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 claim a diversity bonus point by using Amol as holiday relief.  Expect The One Show to feature even more Jermaine Jenas, as cuddly Amol moves away from making Alex Jones look  really relaxed and capable.  We say farewell to the gabbling knowledge over-sharing that irritates so much on Radio 4's Media Show. 

I'm not sure that new Today editor Owenna Griffiths concocted this deal. You don't really need 5 named presenters on Today, as long as you can use 'occasionals' (cf Simon Jack) in school holidays. 

Amol, on £205k, can expect a salary boost; Justin Webb's on £250k.  Did the BBC feel Mr Rajan might have been tempted after his long interview yesterday with GB News lead presenter and chairman, Andrew Neil ?

P.S. Today producers: Don't ever ask Amol and Mishal to bash through the papers together - they're both capable of spitting out words at speeds way beyond normal comprehension levels.

Transformative endeavours

Wherever the true management of BBC World News 'lives' (in the commercial or public service divisions), there's a continuing and worrying belief that other people will pay BBC producers to make programmes that are a) worth watching and  b) in no way self-serving or tainted by their funding.  

The latest name for this perennially misguided enterprise is "Programme Partnerships", and the BBC wants someone to be in charge... 

A new division at BBC Global News. We tell the stories that make a difference but don’t always make the headlines. By developing partnerships with the most influential organisations, we identify the innovation, ambition and impact of some of the most transformative endeavours shaping our world today. Industries, campaigns, causes and passions are explored and unveiled around the globe. The creative and production values of BBC StoryWorks combined with new and exclusive global audiences – we offer our partners the chance to bring their experience and expertise to life, today.

An additional shove ?

 It seems Meghan Markle added to GMB's recent audience growth... 

So ... the Duchess of Sussex formally filed a complaint to @ITV on Monday.
It’s thought to have been sent to the broadcaster’s CEO.
Meghan raised concerns about how @piersmorgan’s words affect the issue of mental health and what it might do to others contemplating suicide pic.twitter.com/rA09dOQ4GN

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 10, 2021

International boundaries

Some more re-drawing of the lines at the BBC.  BBC Studios takes over Children's programme makers, previously left free from commercial imperatives.   And BBC Global News Ltd becomes a division of BBC Studios, rather than a fully standalone company. 

New DG Tim Davie has set a target of £300m coming back to the BBC from Studios in each of the five years from 2022/23, up from the previous target of £240m. He says it's 'ambitious' but frankly, it's not really a game-changer - equivalent to 8.5% of current licence fee income. 

I

Pushed, jumped or choreographed ?

Piers Morgan's departure from ITV's breakfast show, GMB, needs analysis. 

Day One (Monday)

Piers, 55, joins the team, as usual, at 0630, and delivers his customary rant, without autocue.  It's often a bundle of things that have upset him overnight, thrown out in the manner of a phone-in show host, and sometimes focussed on a single topic.  On Meghan Markle's conversation with Oprah Winfrey, his principal point is that he didn't believe a word she says, reinforced through the show by references to 'Miss Pinocchio'. Co-host Susanna Reid, alongside, adopts previously unseen intensities of lemon-sucking grimaces. 

Piers doesn't hang around for the post-programme inquest. The production team has a number of BAME members. 

Day Two (Tuesday)

Occasional weather forecaster Alex Beresford is on set from 0630.  It's not his normal day. The previous Friday, Piers tweeted "I think it’s maybe time to ban our Princes from marrying American women". Alex had tweeted back "You ever stop and think maybe you should give this woman carrying a baby a break?"  

Alex says his piece on air: ‘I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle you’ve made that so clear a number of times on this programme. I understand that you’ve got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle or had one and she cut you off. She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to. Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don’t think she has but yet you continue to trash her.’

Piers stands up to leave the set ‘I’m done with this. Sorry. You can trash me, mate, but not on my own show. See you later, can’t do this'.  In a tweet he said "I was annoyed, went for a little cool-down, and came back to finish the discussion." When he returned to set, he told Alex: ‘I completely respect that. It was my idea to have you on to talk about this.’

Also in the news that morning, an embargoed story from Ofcom, warning news presenters about monologues, cf complaints about Emily Maitlis on Newsnight: "It is an important reminder that when preparing programme introductions in news programmes, which are designed to catch the audience’s attention – particularly in matters of major political controversy – presenters should ensure that they do not inadvertently give the impression of setting out personal opinions or views."

After the show, ITV CEO Carolyn McCall reveals that there are continuing conversations with Piers. Round about midday, overnight figures for GMB on Monday reveal a record audience share of 31%, which clearly cheers Piers.  BBC Breakfast host Dan Walker takes a hard line on Twitter.  

Congratulations on your ratings 👏🏻
Ours were good too.

In other news... I hope my boss would have dragged me off set if I’d used my platform - on national TV - to tell a pregnant woman, speaking openly about suicidal thoughts, that I didn’t believe a word she said. https://t.co/IGX7PWM01U

— Dan Walker (@mrdanwalker) March 9, 2021

In the afternoon, Ofcom, now officially part of the Cancel Culture by responding to volumes rather than quality of complaints, also takes to Twitter. (Kevin Bakhurst, 55 is the Content Director who sets store by knowing numbers)

 

We have launched an investigation into Monday’s episode of Good Morning Britain under our harm and offence rules.

As of 14:00 on Tuesday 9 March, we have received 41,015 complaints about the programme.

— Ofcom (@Ofcom) March 9, 2021

Not long after 6pm, ITV and Piers reveal their parting of the ways. It's clear ITV needed an on-air apology, and that Piers refused to give it.  

Day Three (Today, Wednesday)

In traditional Piers fashion, he's already seeking to change the narrative - his views are being suppressed. 

 

On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. If you did, OK. Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on. Thanks for all the love, and hate. I’m off to spend more time with my opinions. pic.twitter.com/bv6zpz4Roe

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 10, 2021

Meanwhile two nascent tv operations, at GB News and News UK, have presenter vacancies.  

Credibility

Piers Morgan on GMB yesterday re Meghan Markle: “I don’t believe a word she says. I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report.”

ITV CEO Carolyn McCall this morning:“I completely believe what she said, that the most important thing with mental health that ITV does and is totally committed to, is that we support, we get people to speak up, we listen, we say everyone has to listen and everyone has to believe because that’s how you get people to speak up. So we are very committed to that.”

“I haven’t spoken to Piers myself, but I know Kevin Lygo [ITV managing director for media and entertainment] is speaking to him on a regular basis and has done so the last couple of days.” 

The average audience for the replayed CBS special on ITV was 11.3m - a 54% share of the available audience. GMB in the morning of the interview claimed a record share of 31%. 

Boundary changes

For those entertained by the new BBC News management structure, I can report that size seems to matter to the men in charge. 

Jamie Angus, Senior Controller, News Output and Commissioning has outlined his new group to staff and claimed "Together we produce almost all of BBC News’ live daily news output, and run the new commissioning structure that sits at the heart of our new operating model." Newsnight and Newsbeat are new acquisitions, though political programmes are lost to News Content (nee Newsgathering). 

Jamie has found a berth for Joanna Carr, previously Head of Current Affairs (including Newsnight)  as Head of Long Form Commissioning, Panorama, TV long form, long form audio, and podcast strategy.  (What will happen to her £165k + salary ?), but it's a pretty firm thank you and goodbye to two former News Board colleagues: "I’d like to thank Gavin Allen and Kamal Ahmed for their leadership, and for supporting you all in this transition period."

At News Content nee Newsgathering, Jonathan Munro notes newly-won control of politics programmes, and will continue to run the News Editors, a sort of VAR function that tried to balance programme demands with newsgathering capabilities, and will presumably now patrol a new frontline with Mr Angus' commissioning structure. 

On the Digital Front, Nathalie Malinarich’s Digital Development area takes over Design and "Visual Journalists", whilst Long Reads, Picture Desk and Writers’ team go to Digital Output, led by Stuart Millar.  

Turness back

The NBC/Sky News channel that never happened left at least 60 people without a job when it was cancelled last August. One of them, Deborah Turness will be going back to her roots at ITN, as its CEO. 

Deborah, 53 (St Francis College [expelled], Knights Templar Baldock, University of Surrey, Bordeaux University) joined ITN in 1988 as a freelance in the Paris office. She left as its first woman editor in 2013, to join NBC in the States. 

Deborah replaces Anna Mallett who joined as CEO in 2019 from BBC Studios, and is now set to join Netflix as VP Physical Production for the UK and local language production across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific.  The handover comes in April. 

Cutting room floor

Oprah has told CBS that the interview with Harry and Meghan was 3 hour 25 minutes, edited down to 1 hour 25 minutes. Filling a two hour slot....

Set them free

 A fair number of presenters and their listeners are asking when will lockdown end on BBC Local Radio. 

The BBC response to the pandemic at local radio level has seen a measure of central command and control not experienced since Mark Byford was Director of Regional Broadcasting in the 90s, determining the number and titles of correspondents for each station. 

Weekdays on every station are broken down into four hour chunks - 6-10, 10-2 and 2-6 - with a single presenter trying to maintain the will to live for each session, five days a week. Knackering for the host and their audience. This plan is so good it's been rolled out to Bradford, Wolverhampton and Sunderland, with stations previously thought to be on their knees supplying staff to run these 'temporary' operations from 6am to 2pm. 

BBC strategists, responding to the rallying cries of Tim Davie, are highly likely to propose that this is the future, before fully understanding whether or not it's working. Certainly it would be a point of difference with local commercial radio, impoverished now as Ofcom and the major commercial groups skip hand in hand over pages and pages of dropped commitments to local news.  We haven't had audience figures since Q1 2020.  Then, BBC local radio reached 7.8m people each week. That's down from 8.8m five years ago, and 9.5m ten years ago. 

How tv works

Oprah's production company charged CBS between $7m and $9m for the Meghan and Harry interview. Advertising slots were on offer at $325,000 per 30 seconds. Viewers without stopwatches felt the two-hour slot was almost 50% adverts.  Aiming off for exaggeration, then if 40 minutes of ads were sold at top price, CBS would have raised $26m. 

Oprah's primetime chat with Michael Jackson on ABC in 1993 attracted an audience of approximately 62 million viewers. That puts in it 4th place in the league of 'entertainment' chart toppers, with the final episode of MASH in 1983 still in first place. 

Displacement activity

For BBC staff during the pandemic, Managing Director Bob Shennan has become a modern version of Cliff Michelmore - relaxed, avuncular, concerned yet good-humoured, pluckily present in Broadcasting House to host weekly Zoom events for all staff to vent their anxieties to various other Directors.  

At bit like Rishi, 'Covid' Bob has presided over generous solutions. Taxi to work ? No problem. Better laptop ?  Certainly.  Counselling on hydration ?  We'll sort it. 

But now there are senior managers less keen on looking Bob in the eye, virtually or face to face. He's also been put in charge of sending more departments out of London, to meet Tim Davie's pledge to move from 50% to 66.6666% working outside the M25.  

When Greg Dyke forced the BBC Barons to fill up Salford, they offered up their least totemic departments. Radio sent 5Live, TV sent Children's and Religion, Engineering sent R&D, Sport didn't duck fast enough, and everyone pretended the combination made perfect sense - what enormous synergies there would be !

Now the game is more dangerous. Everyone would be surprised if existing buildings fill up to more than two-thirds of their pre-Covid occupancy in the years ahead - so there's space everywhere. Cardiff, Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham and Salford have room.  The easy move is to look at departments still working at White City and Television Centre and SEND THEM NORTH, thus shortening leases.  But everyone knows there's space at Broadcasting House, so management teams will be throwing ropes in that direction. 

And there probably has to be a better 'story' than just moving out of White City. It can't just be BBC3 in the removal van. I'm hearing that bits of News will be packing as well, with "story hubs" among those threatened with a period in bubble wrap. 

There is one unresolved conundrum in all these - how many people will take themselves (and their families) to these new addresses ?  If you only have to be present a couple of times a week, why shift your personal operations centre from Bromley to Bearsden, or Shoreditch to Swinton ?  

Making the case

The BBC's 21-page consultation document on re-inventing the re-invention of BBC Three crept out without fanfare yesterday.

As with many BBC proposals, it reads as if only churls would disagree. The BBC is already committed to spending more on  BBC Three content online by 2022, and the additional costs of a return to broadcasting are put, enticingly, at a one-off splurge of £3.5m on marketing, and additional running costs of £7.5m a year. Why wouldn't you ?

The identifiable target - a weekly reach of 3.5m amongst 16-34 year-olds, and an unidentified additional rise in 13-15 year-olds, before they obediently switch off at the 9pm watershed - is hardly stretching. They will get a diet rich in repeats (74% at peaktime, plus everything you've watched that day re-run from midnight.) The word "EastEnders" doesn't appear in the consultation document; "acquisitions" does.

You can almost imagine how pleased the authors of the proposal are with themselves. Very few organisations would employ people unashamed to construct this sort of tosh: 

Regarding treatment and tonality, the BBC Three channel will embrace a contemporary visual language that is social and participatory in its nature. Its coverage will align to the most relevant topics across the country ranging from identity, entrepreneurialism and health, to music, sports and pop culture.... 

A BBC Three broadcast TV channel will enable a wider range of young people to access the highly relevant content that can help them celebrate who they are and discover who they want to be....

The content will cover a variety of regional realities...

Stuck in teeth

Weekday afternoons on GB News are to feature former Brexit MEP Alexandra Phillips, who changed her Twitter handle two weeks ago from @brexitalice to @thatalexwoman, and is now learning the basics of tv presentation. 

Fast learning pineapple is nothing a good on air snack as every advert break I have to pull long fruity fibres out from between my teeth pic.twitter.com/EYB85pvdSl

— Alexandra Phillips (@ThatAlexWoman) February 28, 2021

Miserable peaks

The woeful Bank Balance on BBC1 may have reached its low-point, returning an average of 1.5m viewers in the overnight ratings. 

Your favourite blogger tried Stand & Deliver on C4 to avoid it - and was one among 560k. If casting directors are looking for an oaf other than Gordon Ramsay, please try Curtis Pritchard. Boorish, mannerless and humourless, he treated his mentor Judi Love to a succession of insensitive, border-line racist remarks. I hope the director had to persuade Judi to offer her final charitable remarks on his performance. She shouldn't have agreed. 

Recruitment woes

More diversity worries at the top of the BBC. Non-executive director Tom Ilube, on the Board since 2017, is leaving before his current term is up (2023) for a new gig as chairman of the RFU. 

Tom, 57, a self-described 'introvert geek', was crowned "Britain's most influential black person" in 2017. Born in Isleworth to an English mother and Nigerian father, Ilube spent his formative years between the UK, Uganda, and his dad’s country of birth.  His dad Nat spent some time as a BBC TV Engineer, and had the mixed pleasure of behind the scenes work on The Black and White Minstrel Show. 

Intelligence

 A part of the obituary of former BBC Defence Correspondent Christopher Lee in today's Times, which passes without comment... 

Meanwhile, [David] English had become foreign editor of the Daily Express and asked Lee to be deputy to Chapman Pincher, the paper’s defence writer. During this time he was recruited into the Royal Naval Reserves’ joint services intelligence wing, later becoming captain of HMS Wildfire, the wing’s communication branch at Chatham in Kent.

In 1976 he moved to the BBC as defence and foreign affairs correspondent, spending time in Moscow and the Middle East.  

He left the BBC's direct employment in 1986.

5 on top

Channel 5 has 'won' the 9pm slot twice this week. Last night, an average audience of 2.2m watched Ben Fogle in Chernobyl. Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance eased down to 1.5m.

On Monday, Ben Fogle's New Lives In The Wild attracted 1.8m. On BBC1, David Harewood's Covid documentary was watched by an average audience of 1.4m.

Out of London

 "Darlo" will be the northern home of Rishi Sunak's new 'economic campus', providing 750 jobs. It's around 2hrs 45 minutes from King's Cross to Darlington by direct train services - and there is a new site just outside the station available. The Cattle Mart moved out in September to a new home at Humbleton Park. 

The station is just 18 miles from Mr Sunak's Richmond constituency home in the village of Kirby Sigston; a Grade II listed Georgian manor house with 12 acres. 

Failing to score

 I think the BBC was guilty of a prime time fumble last night. Actor David Harwood asked the question "Why Is Covid Killing Black People ?" in a commission announced last August by Jack Bootle, Head of Science and Natural History, and Sreya Biswas, Commissioning Editor. 

It was an hour-long 'journey' for David, shepherded by a production team of freelances employed by Twenty Twenty.  This indie has brought us First Dates, The Choir and A House Through Time, and is part of Warner Brothers. It climaxed in a very poor Zoom interview with Kemi Badenoch, Treasury & Equalities Minister which David himself described as 'frustrating'. 

If this had been conducted by a ring-savvy interviewer, my shared frustration would have been eased. A real missed opportunity. 

Next level

What chances of Huw Edwards getting even sharper in the suits area ? 

This month, Nigerian-designer David Wej opens his first store outside Lagos, at 38 Great Portland Street,  offering “affordable, quality, signature fashion”, including traditionally inspired bespoke jacquard suits.

One for Huw, Fergus and Hugh, please.... 

 

Re-invention or makeover ?

What chances of a completely different BBC3 emerging in January 2022 ?  The rhythm of financial planning suggests the decision to give it another go was taken last October - cf this Tweet exchange involving Controller Fiona Campbell.

Oh yes we r ! Tee hee

— Fiona Campbell (@TVFIONA) October 14, 2020

It re-starts shackled with at least one quota - "at least two-thirds of the expanded BBC Three’s programme spend to be outside of London".  (Grammarians and accountants will note the position of 'expanded' in that pledge). Will it have a news/entertainment show, like Liquid News ? Will it be forced to carry an EastEnders repeat ?  Will it be allowed to pack late night with US adult cartoons ?

The announcement of the plans makes sense of recent hires by BBC Studios, buying in indie talent with experience of music entertainment shows. Yet another re-birth for Top of The Pops seems inevitable. 

 

Three is the magic number

Like branch lines, tv channels seem harder to re-open than close. So the nimble BBC plans to re-open BBC Three as that old-fashioned nonsense, a broadcast channel, in January 2022. It will be on-air from 19.00 to 04.00 each day. CBBC will go back to closing at 19.00 instead of 21.00, as was the case before 2016. BBC Three’s remit will therefore be expanded to include a pre-watershed content offer suitable for 13+ audiences. 

There'll be a Public Interest Test (a second referendum ?) with the publication of a consultation document on Friday 5 March.

When the channel closed, the BBC said there was "clear public value in moving BBC Three online, as independent evidence shows younger audiences are watching more online and watching less linear TV". In the last full year of operation, the channel spent £82m on content, and reached 18.4% of the population each week, and 22% of the 16-34 year-olds it was targetting. By March 2017, it's reach online amongst 16-34 year-olds was 8%.  The BBC said the closure saved £30m.

A million

Good Morning Britain clocked up its first 1 million average audience from 0600 to 0900 on Monday - up 40% on the same day last year. Its share of audience was 28.5%. Not enough to overtake BBC Breakfast, but Piers' first show, back in November 2015, averaged 601k.

Victorian

 And it works on stamps.... 

Deep thinking

The Deep Nostalgia app also appears to work with paintings. Here's the BBC official portrait of John Birt (by Tai-Shan Schierenberg) going through the motions.

The eyes have it...

If we were all stuck in offices, I suspect the My Heritage Deep Nostalgia app would be getting a bit of traffic today. Here's Lord Reith. 

And another

Inaya Forlarin Iman is the latest recruit to the GB News presentation team. She stood as a Brexit party candidate in Leeds North East in 2018, coming fifth out of six, with 3.5% of the vote. 

Inaya, 24 (Tonbridge Grammar, Arabic and International Relations, Leeds University) has said that her mother was an illegal immigrant to the UK. She is a founding director of Toby Young's Free Speech Union, writes for Spiked and the Daily Mail, and has been making most of her tv appearances as a 'commentator'. She gets to present at breakfast on weekdays. 

She's clearly capable of filling. Here's a video from her YouTube channel, from a year ago, where she speaks without deviation or interruption for 16 minutes. 

 

GB people

One suspects GB News will not be as hot as the BBC on socio-economic diversity statistics. Nonetheless, they were proud to announce the hiring of Michelle Dewberry, (2 GCSEs Sydney Smith Comp, Hull and former Brexit candidate) as a weeknight presenter. However bright and bubbly the former Apprentice star might be, she probably already feels the neck weight of her programme tagline "connecting with communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland". 

Gill Penlington's qualifications as Senior Executive Producer include PPE from Balliol, a contacts book from three years editing Question Time and launching Kay Burley at Breakfast on Sky News. Amanda Hall, an assistant editor at Sky News, brings a 1st in Ancient History from Birmingham, and three and a half years trying to make London Live work. Alex Farrell, joining from TalkRadio, managed to run a law degree course at King's, London, in parallel with production shifts at LBC and Heart.