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 The handing over of the sticky end of the sticky stick of over-75 free licences, the threat, now withdrawn, to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee, the day-to-day worry over continuing FCO funding of additional World Service output, and the current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.
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