Waterloo

Alongside The World Cup, The Queen and Peaky Blinders, there's one rather unusual entry at No 5 in the Top 20 most viewed iPlayer series for 2022. 

The recently-resurrected Waterloo Road has yet to make big waves in the overnight audience figures, but the opportunity to catch up on the first incarnation, Waterloo Road (2006-15) produced 46,380,000 views over 2022.  

Let's get the old version of Come Dancing, currently showcasing Terry Wogan and Ray Moore at their acid 1979 best on BBC4, into the 2023 charts.  Try this episode, and watch the bloke who's a bit cocky from 27.50.   Or this, with Kevin Clifton's parents doing a showdance at 16.10. 

Steps

Well meant, but a little too pleased with themselves. That's my take on Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot and their review of the BBC's reporting (and drama mentions) of matters economic. They like raising questions, but are light on actionable improvements. 

Here's a couple. Do work on core, legible graphs that come round again and again - inflation, GDP, borrowing, public spending - and stick to that style for at least five years.  Chose a short, medium and long term baseline, and occasionally use three graphs shining a different light on the same topic. Refine the design with focus groups. Stop being visually clever, with figures overlaid on the outside of Broadcasting House, or shipping containers, or tower blocks  - it's distracting and a waste of time. Re-hire Blastland or someone similar to sit in the corner of the Business and Economics Unit for a year, challenging standard responses to stories.  Make the economics team and the politics team sit together for core Budget coverage. 

And for gawd's sake, get a strong 'State of the Economy' feature out there on a regular basis before the next election, rather than the regular rush jobs, such as we had when we lost the car battery factory. 

Barrett Strong RIP

"Just My Imagination" was regularly on the jukebox of the overnight lorry drivers cafe of the M61 services at Anderton when I worked nights during the summer of 1971. 

The ballad followed The Temptations' psychedelic period, and was a perfect moment or two of relaxation between polishing the closed cafeteria floors with a giant, unwieldly rotary throbbing thing. It had been written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong a couple of years earlier, but left on the shelf. Some band members wanted to get back to 'classic' soul and away from the furrow of Ball of Confusion - but was it an homage to "My Girl", or a brand new direction ? 

Norman Whitfield recorded the backing track that pulsed gently through the two chords, with the Funk Brothers, featuring Bob Babbitt, rather than James Jamerson, on Fender Precision bass (now in the possession of Phil Collins). Jack Ashford, now thought to be Funk Brothers' last survivor, was on marimba. Then arranger Jerry Long added the shimmering strings, harp and brass, intertwined from the start with Eddie Willis' and Dennis Coffey's two guitar intro, itself a nod to 'My Girl'. (Jerry Long Jr, later better known as Kokane, was born in 1969.) 

The Temptations recorded their vocals in a long overnight session, with about-to-depart Eddie Kendricks on lead. Barrett Strong's lyrics made room for one important intervention. Paul Williams took the line "Ev’ry night on my knees I pray", the group sang "Dear Lord, hear my plea", and Eddie was back with "Don’t ever let another take her love from me, or I would surely die"

Just My Imagination had 16 weeks on the UK charts, reaching No 8. In the States, it was a number 1for two weeks, holding off the challenge of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". 

Now I remember

Has it really taken Sir William Shawcross a week to remember that he knows Richard Sharp ? (Clearly Richard Sharp wouldn't have had it front of mind to remember William Shawcross)

Public Appointments Commissioner William Shawcross has recused himself from the investigation into Richard Sharp's appointment as BBC chairman. In a letter to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Mr Shawcross wrote: "As I have met Mr Sharp on previous occasions, I have decided to recuse myself from this particular investigation. I will be delegating my powers as commissioner under the 2019 Order in Council to an independent person who will be appointed by my office for this one investigation. They will have sole responsibility and will be supported by my officials."

Attitudes

 BBC Chairman Richard Sharp was Director of the Centre for Policy Studies 2008-2011. 

A  flavour of the papers published during his tenure...

Why the Government must win its battle with the public sector unions over pension reform

Why tackling workless households can lead to growth

How employment legislation and regulation can be reformed to ease the costs on business and encourage job creation.

The five fiscal fallacies propagated by opponents to spending cuts

More strenuous and rapid cuts in government spending are needed

Thinking behind further calls for equality legislation is flawed

Perceptions

"Frenemies" Tim Davie and Richard Sharp might want to have a chat about brand values this week. The CEO and the Chairman of the BBC both have marketing experience - Tim at Pepsi, Richard at burnishing his own reputation. 

Beyond 'editorial standards', the BBC is extraordinarily firm with conflicts of interest for talent, particularly on perceptions. Nick Knowles was made to stand down from DIY SOS after 22 years, for appearing in a Shreddies ad dressed as a builder. 

Here's the BBC basic: A potential conflict of interest arises when there is the possibility that an individual’s external activities or interests may affect, or be reasonably perceived as affecting, the BBC’s impartiality and its integrity, or risk damaging the BBC’s reputation generally or the value of the BBC brand. 

Another chum: In August 2010, ex-Chair of Goldman Sachs, Richard Sharp, was one of four City figures
invited by Osborne to join an “independent challenge group”, with a remit to “question the unquestionable” in the Treasury's austerity drive.

A bibulous Nirvana for well-heeled oenophiles

Oliver Shah in the Sunday Times tells us Richard Sharp "is a regular at Oswald’s, a private members’ club in Mayfair, where he has dined with Nadhim Zahawi."

Opened in 2017, converted from the former MichaelJohn hair salon, it sits across the road from the Faraday Museum on Albemarle Street. The name comes from founder, Robin Birley’s royal portraitist grandfather, Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley MC RA. 

It boasts lounges, bar, wine cellar and a cigar terrace. Founding members may store and drink their own wines in the Club, and get online access to the records.  Current head chef is Gianluca Cossu, born in Sardinia, charged with producing a 'wine-friendly menu'. 

In 2019, Wine List Confidential described the club as "surprisingly boisterous", with tables often sending blind samples across to other tables, to test their wine knowledge. "A bibulous Nirvana for well-heeled oenophiles".

Ding dang

Zahawi should have resigned during the week; his advisers should have realised the position was indefensible after their session with Sir Laurie Magnus, Minder of Ethics, No 10. 

Richard Sharp and Andrew Garfield should be drafting a BBC resignation letter today (and probably try to get it out by tea-time).   

Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke have returned to the case of BBC Chairman Richard Sharp, Canadian businessman Sam Blyth and Boris 'Al' Johnson in today's Sunday Times. 

Whilst Pogrund and Yorke have had to correct one element of their first timeline of events - the Chequers Chop Suey Supper with Al, Sam and Dickie, took place after Richard Sharp had been installed at the BBC - but they've now put important holes in other elements of Mr Sharp's story. 

The Sunday Times's first version brought a response from Richard Sharp that he'd met Sam Blyth, an old friend, for dinner at the end of November 2020. That, of course, would have been against lockdown rules.  Now Mr Sharp says the dinner was in September 2020 (the month Simon Case was appointed Cabinet Secretary). The Times of 19th September carried a piece headlined "Overburdened, underpaid and ‘misery on his face’: Boris Johnson gets the blues". 

It went on "Those in contact with the prime minister, both friends and colleagues, say he is finding aspects of the job extraordinarily tough. They are concerned that Mr Johnson’s longstanding tendency for dark moods is being exacerbated by the pressure he is under. On the personal front, they say, Mr Johnson, 56, is worried and complaining about money. He is still supporting, to different degrees, four out of his six children, has been through an expensive divorce and had his income drop by more than half as a result of fulfilling his lifetime ambition."

Easy then, to believe that a Dickie/Sam dinner might have talked a little about their mutual friend, and perhaps their shared experiences of divorce costs.  But why cousin Sam didn't just call cousin Al/Boris is a puzzle, unless, of course, the non-financial advice from an investment banker working at the heart of No 10 was that it should be done 'properly'. 

The BBC vacancy was very much in the air that September. Briefings in August said Boris had lined up Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd and Andrew Neil as possible candidates; at the end of September, newspapers claimed it was a done deal for Charles Moore, denied almost instantly by then Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden. In fact, the formal recruitment process that produced Mr Sharp was launched on 14th October, and applications closed on 11th November. 

Today's Sunday Times say there was one more phone call between Dickie and Sam, before Mr Sharp called in on Cabinet Secretary Simon Case on Friday December 4th.  On Monday 7th, Case asked his deputy to draft a formal note of advice to the Prime Minister. On Friday 11th December, Mr Sharp had his final interview for the vacancy of BBC Chairman. On December 22nd, the 'advice' note was handed to Mr Johnson “Given the imminent announcement of Richard Sharp as the new BBC chair, it is important that you no longer ask his advice about your personal financial matters.”

Sharp and Johnson's shaky defence now rests on arguing that the country's top Civil Servant and his number 2 got the wrong end of the stick in their call for an end to advice seeking. After all, Boris Johnson's spokesperson last week couldn't have been ding-dang clearer "“Richard Sharp has never given any financial advice to Boris Johnson, nor has Mr Johnson sought any financial advice from him.”

I/C Salford

The BBC's wavering attitude to 'site management' has resulted in a new, part-time job for Heidi Dawson, Controller of Radio 5Live.  She's been declared 'Head of Salford' , described as an 'internal figurehead' as part of the BBC's Across the UK initiative.

“I’ve worked at our Salford base since it opened in 2011 and it’s still just as exciting to me,” says Heidi, "There’s a special North West energy, creativity and authenticity that drives the teams here and I am looking forward to seeing how we harness that further to work even better together.”

In 2019, the BBC scrapped the title Director of the North role, held first by Peter Salmon-without-ever-moving-there, and then Alice Webb. At the time it said that it was because Helen Thomas, BBC Director, England was based in the North.

Huna London

The total weekly reach for the BBC's Arabic Service including digital, BBC News Arabic TV and radio is 42.2 million. The digital part of that is 12.7m.  I can't find a current split between tv and radio, but ten years ago, tv was reaching 24m. So today, at 1300 GMT the BBC World Service broadcasts its last radio bulletin in Arabic after 85 years, surrendering an influential audience of up to 5m.  

On the 3rd of January, 1938 Ahmad Kamal Sourour Effendi began the very first broadcast to the Near East region with "This is London .. Ladies and gentlemen we are broadcasting from London in the Arabic Language for the first time in history". The Arabic service was the first non-English broadcast from Britain, and it came in response to Mussolini's anti-British propaganda stations broadcasting from Bari and Rome. Spanish and Portuguese services were launched just weeks after Arabic; Persian and Turkish services as well as German, Russian, French and around ten other European languages followed between 1939 and 1942.

The stations first 'organiser' was Stewart Perowne, who had learned Arabic working in education in Palestine since 1927. He later became a diplomat and embarked on a 'lavender marriage' with Freya Stark. Kamal Sourour was from Egypt; the Italians had been using Tunisians, harder to understand further east. The first bulletin was not without controversy.  Sourour reported “Another Arab from Palestine was executed by hanging at Acre this morning by order of a military court. He was arrested during recent riots in the Hebron Mountains and was found to possess a rifle and some ammunition.”

The item had already appeared in English on the Empire Service bulletin, and George Rendel, the head of the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, said “the fact that we had not concealed this item of news was a guarantee of our statement that our news would be straight news, and not carefully selected for the audience.”

The whole enterprise was funded jointly by grants-in-aid from the Empire Office and the Foreign Office - a position maintained until George Osborne stitched up Mark Thompson in 2010, with licence fee payers bearing the cost from 2014 on.  

Niggle

After complaints by more than one reader I have tried to block ads from the Nigel Farage-fronted Southbank Research, via Google AdSense. Please let me know if they persist - I don't always see the ads most of you get when signing in... 

Everyone in

The ambition is welcomed, but the name changes makes little difference. 

Digital UK, the little-known title of the operators of Freeview and Freesat, is changing to Everyone TV. It's owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Freeview and Freesat is in use in 20m UK homes. 

Chief Executive Jonathan Thompson (King Edward's Birmingham and BSc Psychology University of Manchester) is a former strategist for Channel 4, Ofcom and the Daily Mail Group, in place at Digital UK since 2013.   "We at Everyone TV will lead the evolution of free television services in the UK so that universality – in all senses of the word – remains a fundamental principle.”

Meanwhile....

The latest public audience figures for the week ending 15th January have BBC programmes in the top six positions, and in seven of the Top Ten places. BBC leads ITV 27/23 in the Top 50, and there's no show for Netflix, Amazon or Disney+.  A BBC2 programme creeps in at 49; a healthy 2.9m consolidated for Only Connect. 

Grid

 I wonder if this is the sort of document Sir William Shawcross might uncover.... 

Never heard 'em

It seems the BBC managers making decisions on which local radio presenters to shed are so close to the output that they need applicants for their own jobs to submit demo tapes.....

One of five

Let's remind you of the interview panel that gave Richard Sharp such a hard time in his Quest for the Siege Perilous at the top of the BBC, and decided that he, above all the other investment bankers in the world, was capable of recommendation to The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. 

Panel Chair: Sarah Healey, (BA Modern History and English, Magdalen College Oxford, captain of the 1998 winning team in University Challenge. She met her husband at Oxford, where he picked up a doctorate in philosophy to follow his 1st from Cambridge. He's now a barrister specialising in property litigation.  

Catherine Baxendale (Dr Challoner's Grammar, Aylesbury and B.Sc, LSE) an HR consultant, formerly with Tesco and Procter & Gamble (brand manager for Pantene). In 2014 she was commissioned to write a report for the Cabinet Office on how to best manage senior talent moving from the private sector into the Civil Service, via Francis Maude. Baxendale donated £50,000 to the Tories in 2011, and in 2017, she was on the shortlist to become the party’s candidate in Hitchin & Harpenden, a contest won by Bim Afolami. Husband Tony is an entrepreneur and part of the Legatum Institute and they run an organic walnut farm in Hertfordshire. 

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. 

The Senior Independent Panel Member was Sir William Fittall, a retired civil servant and Anglican lay reader.  Sir William (Christ Church, Oxford) settled disputes about Bishops and Vicars; he died in March last year, aged 68. 

Whilst Mr Sharp believes he was appointed on merit, the panel found four other applicants appointable, from a total of eight invited to interview out of a total of 23 candidates. Thus his superior 'merit' was identified further by Oliver Dowden and Boris Johnson. 

Andy on hand

Richard Sharp is doing things in the wrong order. On Monday morning, presumably with the help of BBC Communications, he issued an email to all staff. On Monday evening, according to The Times, he hired a crisis management specialist. Maybe Andrew Garfield, of Garfield Advisory, would have spotted the spelling mistake.   Then again, Mr Garfield calls himself a 'Corporate Communications Profeesional [sic]' on Linkedin. 

Presumably Mr Garfield, rather than the other Andrew, Andrew Scadding of the BBC Corporate Affairs team, will be at Mr Sharp's elbow when he faces the grumpy MPs on the Commons Culture Select Committee in just under two weeks' time.  The MPs will need barrister-written questions to get past Sharp's dead bat, rather than the usual very-pleased-with-himself 'gotcha' tactics of John Nicholson. 

Andrew Garfield arrived at Oxford University in 1980, two years after Richard Sharp left. He edited Isis magazine, studied Russian and French and parlayed the combination into jobs with Brussels newsletters, before becoming Brussels correspondent of The Scotsman. Roles with the Evening Standard, Scotland on Sunday and The Independent, before a move into financial PR with Brunswick in 2001.  He's been self-employed since 2017. 

Mr Garfield represents Highgate on the Board of Deputies, and has supported calls for the UK to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move scrapped by Rishi Sunak in November last year. 

Another pair

Two unheralded BBC departures: Carolyn Quinn, for some years a regular Today and PM presenter, and lately of the excellent Westminster Hour, is packing it in, at a mere 61.  Carolyn (Dartford Grammar annd BA French University of Kent) worked on Charing Cross hospital radio before joining the BBC's Local Radio trainee scheme. In 2011, she was elected Chairman of the Houses of Parliament Press Gallery, the first female holder of the post. 

Meanwhile in Washington, Chief Engineer Ted Tait has been made redundant after close to 29 years with the BBC Bureau, and he's not happy about it; he says a visiting manager arrived without warning on Monday to say his role was being 'eliminated'. His first taste of broadcasting was at Syosset High school, which boasted a 10w FM radio station, followed up with a BA in communications from Scranton.  

You can call me Al

BBC Chairman Richard Sharp says he's not a journalist. That's a shame. He's digging in, and probably believes what he's telling himself - that he was selected on merit, rather than because of his connections; that the process was rigorous (cf jobs for Harry Mount as an independent member of the House of Lords appointment commission, Baroness Simone Finn on the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Dido Harding to NHS Improvement, etc); and that, because Simon Case, Boris and himself agreed there was no conflict of interest, then there's no conflict of interest, yah boo, no backsies.  

He was interviewed by Katie Razzall for the Media Show on Radio 4. A well-organised BBC News would have insisted on a grilling by a more experienced hand. 

 

tradingaswdr · Razzall Sharp

Interests

You need to know all of someone's 'interests' before you can judge whether there may be a conflict. 

Richard Sharp's Register of Interests declaration at the BBC was signed off in July last year by fellow Board member and senior independent director Sir Nicholas Serota, who seems to be leading the investigation into Richard's current BBC position. Two pieces of information are withheld under S40 of the Freedom of Information Act - the size of Richard's holding in DLL Capital 2, where 'certain investment decisions are delegated to a blind trust trustee', and the size of Richard's holding in the social media company Kyra (mentioned here). 

Meanwhile Sir Nicholas Serota's Register of Interests declaration was signed off by, yes, Richard Sharp, in July last year. It notes "Personal interests have been declared – details published below. Some declarations may be withheld from publication under the Data Protection Act."

Mr Sharp appears to have signed off all external board members declarations of personal interest in one go on July 12, 2022. All - Shumeet Banerji, Sir Damon Buffini, Elan Closs Stephens, Sir Robbie Gibb, Muriel Grey, Ian Hargreaves and Sir Nicholas Serota - have at least one element withheld from publication. 

Do you think Mr Sharp called a video meeting of the BBC Board yesterday morning to review his position and next steps ?  Did he offer to resign ?  When will we see the minutes ?

Faded duplication

Value and impact. The BBC's 10 O'Clock News team asked Analysis Editor Ros Atkins to do an acoustic version of his backgrounder on Nadeem Zahawi, prepared earlier as stand-alone video.  The original video, below, lasts 5.17.  The 10 version lasts 4.43, and is, frankly, less interesting, less legible and less powerful. Why not save time and money and just run the original - maybe save a couple of seconds on Dan Johnson's recreation of Bernard Falk ?  Then Ros can get home early, and get ready to do another. 

Tory party chairman Nadhim Zahawi is facing questions about his tax affairs. 5 mins on a story that reaches from 2000 to this week. Produced Mary Fuller, Ellyn Duncan & Michael Cox. https://t.co/eWr9VPxrGa pic.twitter.com/m1AzwKLlko

— Ros Atkins (@BBCRosAtkins) January 23, 2023

Sam the man

Canadian Sam Blyth is the founder of Blyth Academy & CEO of the Global Summers Academy, and a man with a love of international travel.  Born in 1954 on a military base in Shilo, Manitoba, he moved to Ottowa as a toddler, where he attended Ashbury College. His father accepted a job with the diplomatic corps, and Sam, now 13, moved too. He went, sequentially, to Trinity College School, Uppingham School, and Pembroke College Cambridge, where he acquired a BA in Anthropology. He followed this with a spell in Paris, at the then strike-bound Sorbonne. 

Perhaps more significant in his career, at 17, he took a summer job as a baggage boy for a European tour run by a Toronto travel firm. In subsequent summers he worked up to becoming assistant tour leader for a bicycle trek from Vienna to London. He once described the students who took the biking tours through Europe as "overprivileged kids," but by 1977 he had set up a travel agency back in Canada. 

One of his early enterprises was the Great Canadian Show Train - "a train consisting of two sleeping compartments, a lounge, a dining car and a caboose that was made into a cabaret" which trekked across Canada with live performances on board and stops in cities for passengers to explore the local arts scenes. A critical success, but a financial flop, said The Globe & Mail. 

In 1980 he caused a stir as the young paramour of a better-known woman 15 years his senior: Barbara Amiel, journalist and future wife of Conrad Black. Ms Amiel divorced CBC radio producer George Jonas in 1979, and was shortly infatuated with the “altogether so physically perfect” Sam Blyth. Having no money, they moved into a cheap, rodent-infested apartment recently vacated by Blyth’s university friends. The new couple attempted to visit Mozambique without visas, and spent ten days in jail. The Canadian government appeared uninterested in freeing them, and eventually the British consul secured their release. They lasted two years. 

Back in the travel business, Sam became the Canadian agent for ticket sales for the Orient Express, and moved from shows to mystery train tours.  Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau participated in one of Blyth's trips to Bhutan and Kashmir.

In 1985, Blyth married Rosemarie Bata, daughter of business magnate Thomas Bata, at Lake Joseph Community Church in Muskoka.  Thomas Bata was once the world’s largest shoemaker. Blyth married under his real name, Graham David Blyth, with the announcement noting his nickname of Sam. They divorced in 1996.   Mr Blyth then partnered Rosemary Phelan, from a famous Canadian food empire. In 2008, they started funding Canadian students on scholarships to Cambridge. 

In February last year, from his base at Casa de Campo, in the Dominican Republic, he wrote to the Globe and Mail complaining about 'thousands of Russian tourists' and called for 'an indefinite ban of travellers from Russia by democratic nations'.  Casa de Campo is 'one of the safest and most luxurious gated communities in the Caribbean' covering 7,000 acres.  It was also where Boris Johnson took a break last year, as Liz Truss battled for survival as PM. 

Sam's connection to Boris ? Blyth’s mother was the granddaughter of Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA. Sir George is Boris Johnson’s great-great-great-grandfather. 

Sam's connection to Richard Sharp (a 'friend for forty years' ) - not yet clear. 

Digging in

Extraordinary. BBC Chairman Richard Sharp has asked a sub-group of his own board, the Nominations Committee to examine his 'conflicts of interest' - another example of an organisation marking its own homework.  The last minutes from the group are from June last year, with Mr Sharp in the chair.

In an email to staff, Mr Sharp spells the name of his close Canadian chum wrong (no additional e on Blyth). He denies any involvement in the establishment of a loan guarantee. There's no mention of chop suey at Chequers, either. 

Dear all,

You may have seen reporting over the weekend about the nature of my appointment as Chairman of the BBC.

As Chairman of the BBC I have a responsibility to you, and to our audiences, to make sure that the BBC is always held in high regard, and I don’t want this episode to distract from the important work that you are doing. I wanted to write to you directly to set out the facts.

Prior to my appointment, I introduced an old friend of mine – and distant cousin of the then Prime Minister – Sam Blythe, to the Cabinet Secretary, as Sam wanted to support Boris Johnson.

I was not involved in making a loan, or arranging a guarantee, and I did not arrange any financing. What I did do was to seek an introduction of Sam Blythe to the relevant official in Government.

Sam Blythe, who I have known for more than forty years, lives in London and having become aware of the financial pressures on the then Prime Minister, and being a successful entrepreneur, he told me he wanted to explore whether he could assist.

He spoke to me because he trusts me and wanted to check with me what the right way to go about this could be. I told him that this was a sensitive area in any event, particularly so as Sam is a Canadian, and that he should seek to have the Cabinet Office involved and have the Cabinet Secretary advise on appropriateness and indeed whether any financial support Sam might wish to provide was possible. Accordingly Sam asked me whether I would connect him with the Cabinet Secretary.

At the time I was working in Downing Street as a special economic adviser to the Treasury during the pandemic, and I had submitted my application to be Chairman of the BBC. I went to see the Cabinet Secretary and explained who Sam was, and that as a cousin of the then Prime Minister he wanted to help him if possible. I also reminded the Cabinet Secretary that I had submitted my application for the position of BBC Chairman. We both agreed that to avoid any conflict that I should have nothing further to do with the matter. At that point there was no detail on the proposed arrangements and I had no knowledge of whether any assistance was possible, or could be agreed.

Since that meeting I have had no involvement whatsoever with any process. Even now, I don’t know any more than is reported in the media about a loan or reported guarantee. 

I am now aware that the Cabinet Office have a note of this meeting, and that this included advice to the Prime Minister that I should not be involved, to avoid any conflict or appearance of conflict with my BBC application. 

The Cabinet Office have confirmed that the recruitment process was followed appropriately and that I was appointed on merit, in a process which was independently monitored. Moreover they have confirmed that they gave advice at the time that I should have no involvement whatsoever in any process which might or might not take place, precisely to avoid a conflict or perception of a conflict of interest.

This matter, although it took place before I joined the BBC, is a distraction for the organisation, which I regret. I’m really sorry about it all. 

I am proud and honoured to have been appointed as the Chairman of the BBC. I have never hidden my longstanding relationship with the former Prime Minister, however I believe firmly that I was appointed on merit, which the Cabinet Office have also confirmed.

We have many challenges at the BBC, and I know that distractions such as this are not welcomed.

Our work at the BBC is rooted in trust. Although the appointment of the BBC Chairman is solely a matter for the Government, I want to ensure that all the appropriate guidelines have been followed within the BBC since I have joined. The Nominations Committee of the BBC Board has responsibility for regularly reviewing Board members conflicts of interest and I have agreed with the Board’s Senior Independent Director, Sir Nicholas Serota, that the Committee shall assess this when it next meets, reporting to the Board, and in the interests of transparency publish the conclusions.

I look forward to continuing our work together.

Surely...

Neither Nadim Zahawi or Richard Sharp should be in post by the end of this week. In the previous century, both would have resigned by now. 

The chairmanship of the Tory Party is a non-job, a sinecure 'running' Central Office. Some holders have also been made 'Ministers without Portfolio'.  Mr Zahawi's base for that is the Cabinet Office, and he attends Cabinet. Rishi will sack him if he doesn't walk. 

Mr Sharp, who has been learning fast but not fast enough about journalism, should have been on Today at 0810 if he really thinks his position is tenable and defensible. There'll be a modicum of support for him at Executive level in the BBC, as he's gone native and thinks it's all, generally, wonderful.  But even Editor-in-chief Tim Davie must realise he's a goner. 

Wayback

Dave Hill, who now runs the website 'On London', has some stuff on Boris Johnson and Richard Sharp, which I have filleted for you. 

In October 2008 Sharp was also appointed by London Mayor Boris Johnson to a board of London 2012 legacy advisers, a role he retained until 2010, and to his economic advisory board.

The Evening Standard’s editor at that time was Veronica Wadley, who had encouraged Johnson to run for Mayor. She stood down from her Standard job in early 2009 and later that year was nominated by Johnson to be the new head of the Arts Council in London. The appointment was blocked by Ben Bradshaw, Labour's Culture Secretary. 

In October 2009 Johnson re-advertised the job and appointed a fresh interview panel, which turned out to include Victoria Sharp, wife to Richard. Interviews took place in June 2010, the month after Labour was defeated at a general election and replaced by the Conservative-led coalition government. On 10 June it was announced that Wadley had been appointed Arts Council London chair after the then culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, approved her re-nomination by Johnson.

Ms Wadley became Conservative peer Baroness Fleet in the 2020 honours list. Also ennobled on that list: Evgeny Lebedev, Ian Botham and Boris' younger brother Jo. 

Businesslike

Talking of letting things slip through your fingers, let's look at the music quiz Popmaster, which is following Ken Bruce to Greatest Hits Radio from April 3, and is expected to air at 9.30am each weekday, spookily exactly the time Ken currently starts on Radio 2. 

Popmaster started in February 1998; John Birt was Director-General, and, through the primary school economics of Producer Choice, the BBC (physical) Record Library was on the wane. It was often 'cheaper' for an occasional user of music to pop down to HMV in Oxford Street and buy a CD.  There was too much pressure on the record library assistants to help with research, and the card index was become increasingly 'gappy'. 

Phil Swern had set himself the challenge of owning every UK Top 40 single from the fifties onwards, and bunged up his parents' house with 20,000 discs at the age of 19. At 50, he was an established radio producer and writing the questions for Popmaster, having run Pick of The Pops for Radio 1 in the 80s and 90s. 

It was Radio 2 producer Colin Martin who put Ken Bruce and Phil Swern together in the development of Popmaster. Colin started his broadcasting career in the tv props department, and his music career as a drummer in the 1960s, playing in The Ingoes (he left when they morphed into The Blossom Toes) and The Artwoods, alongside keyboard player Jon Lord, of Deep Purple fame. His first Radio 2 credit came producing Brian Matthew in 1981. 

By July 1998, Ken, Colin and Phil had decided it was a winner, and applied to copyright the title. It was formally granted in 2000. 

Around 2010, the BBC sought an outside company to provide it with digital popular music. Phil Swern, by then, had been working with a digital music company founded by Andy Hill. “We got together and started I Like Music. For several years, we quietly started digitising everything, starting with ABBA and finishing with ZZ Top and not telling anyone. And when we digitised the whole of the Top 40, it was too late for any other company to offer it. So when the BBC wanted a digital library, they put it out to tender .... and quite a number of companies bid for it and we were shortlisted. Then the BBC gave a list out asking for 30 to 40 titles – some were hits, some were quite well known but not hits and the rest were quite obscure. We supplied all but four and I don’t think the nearest competitor came close. We won the contract, so now it’s our library that they use."

Fast forward to September 2017, and Hill and Swern set up a company called Popmaster Ltd; Andy leaves in 2018, after the arrival of Vanessa Brady as a director, followed later the same year by Ken Bruce.  

Colin Martin left Radio 2 in 2006, having run the station's music policy since 2000.  

A return to form

I do hope the Case of the Careless Chancellor doesn't drop from its belated appearance in the BBC News agenda, but I'm also please that the Chequers Chop Suey Dinner has surfaced (at number 1 in my edition of the BBC News website - I'm never quite sure if Naja has 'personalised' it yet). 

It's the details I love in The Sunday Times. What brought Boris Johnson and Richard Sharp so close together that they went on ski-ing holidays ?  Were these family or bachelor events ?  Who paid ? When a Canadian multi-millionaire wants to support his long-lost cousin, why does he seek to make contact through an investment banker ? Who ordered chop-suey at Chequers ?  Was it a Daylesford Meal Deal that Carrie wokked up ?  When a BBC chairman interviews a new BBC News chief, who says she wants to major on transparency, does an £800k loan arrangement enter his head ? 

Where's the BBC Press Office in all this ?

"There can be few who prize Britain's place in the world who do not value the World Service"

BBC Chairman Richard Sharp speaks about the value of the @BBCWorldService in a speech at the Whitehall & Industry Group (WIG) Breakfast Briefing

More ➡️ https://t.co/Wzb21C3Yte pic.twitter.com/evg4VbTD3M

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) January 19, 2023

Echo chamber

It's probably not surprising that BBC DG Tim Davie has done an interview aimed at Goldman Sachs employees. The link may be surprising; interviewer Anthony Gutman, Head of EMEA banking, says he's a "great friend", so this may not have been set up via BBC Chairman Richard Sharp. 

It's from October, and Mr Davie seems to be wearing a crew-neck sweater without a shirt. He gets through it without 'jeopardy; and only one 'to be clear'. There is a new take on 'eco-system', which Tim chooses to pronounce as 'ecko' rather than the normally-preferred 'ee-co'.

 

2023 priorities

"Are you a brand ?  Start winning on TikTok..."

The message from Kyra, the home of creators, a social media platform, 'the bridge between brands and Gen Z". Clients claimed are Nike, Linkedin, Ebay, Walmart and L'Oreal. 

We note that BBC Chairman Richard Sharp is a declared shareholder. This week, BBC News's Digital Director Naja Neilsen described to Press Gazette why she was boarding that Tik-Tok express train....

World figures

The FT notes BBC Chairman Richard Sharp's latest thrilling speech calling on the Government to take back responsibility for directly funding the World Service.  The report says 'Asked what would happen if the BBC failed to obtain government funding, Sharp replied: “The future of the World Service is in jeopardy.”' 

I'm delighted to report that his speech in full does not mention jeopardy, which is, of course, copyrighted by Tim  Davie. 

Meanwhile, as the BBC seeks an extra £300m from taxpayers, Tim Davie has headed to Davos. As far as I can see, his only public platform is a panel set up by global PR friends, Edelman, talking about building trust in broadcasters. 

Digital news at speed

Whoops. The man hired to run BBC News' digital operations from Washington, who said the BBC was aggressively expanding in North America, has gone, after two and a half months in post. 

Saeed Ahmed joined at the start of November, from NPR. Yesterday, Jake Kanter at Deadline revealed he'd left; an email from Digital News Editor Stuart Millar said “I’m sorry to announce that Saeed Ahmed has decided to leave his role as US head of digital journalism to take up a senior position with another news organisation. This is with immediate effect."

There's no sign of a very big job yet on Saeed's Twitter feed; indeed he has deleted a number of tweets related to his BBC appointment. Yet yesterday he posted a selfie as he started teaching an 'Introduction to Journalism' course at Georgetown. 

Who started it ?

Here's an interesting factoid we should have been told earlier. Newsnight editor Stewart Maclean invited BBC Board member Sir Robbie Gibb to address his staff, according to a feature in the New Statesman.  Mr Maclean said he was just one of  "several critics" given such an opportunity, and that Maclean “made clear in the meeting that he’s not in charge”.

Shuffling the deck

The BBC has made some changes at the margin to its savings plan for Local Radio in England, and now talks about 'moving forward'. So nearly everyone still shares programming after 2pm, but some get fewer or different partners. 

Bristol and Somerset will now work as a pair, as will Gloucester & Wiltshire. Previously all four were conjoined. Solent gets back its own afternoons, with Berkshire and Oxford still sharing; previously they formed a trio.  There are six changes to weekend groupings, for example, re-clustering Cumbria with northwest stations. 

How much this reflects lobbying by MPs is not clear, nor are the financial consequences. The man in charge, Jason Horton, can not have been surprised that his plans have produced 300 applications for redundancy, as he cuts 139 local radio posts from his overall staffing of around 2,000.  

Westenders

Scene: back bar of the Yorkshire Grey, W1. Three men in expensive hoodies, tight chinos and leisure footwear are huddled over halves of Sam Smith's Organic Lager

Sharpie: Rish, how can we help ?

Rishi: Dick, all I asked for was a decent heads-up when you're cutting things. First there was local radio, now we've got Radio Foyle and artsy stuff on Radio Scotland. The DCMS are all over the place fire-fighting back benchers, and we're not front foot on any of this, and personally, I can do without it

Sharpie:  Agreed, but frankly, Rishi, at Golden Slacks we could have done this without anyone spotting it. Our staff here are worse than your headbangers.

Davie: Rishi, to be clear, Rhodri has said sorry for not keeping Culture in the loop; but he even left me out of the Derry and Scotland stuff. He's off on a jeopardy-spotting course at Insead when we get through this. 

Rishi: So can you put this fire out, or do you get another kicking in the midterm review ?

Sharpie: Of course, we'll try, but you know the News Channel goes all Nicaragua from April, and there'll be a fuss about that. 

Rishi: We'll take that.  And you know Newsnight is still in the last chance saloon, don't you ?

Davie: Got that, but you need to rein in Robbie. 

Sharpie: I never know where he is, apart from Board meetings

Rishi: Bottom line - no more money, and no more grief. You sort this - or it's subscription time. Chill nuts anyone ?

Ken-sized hole

BBC Director of Conent Charlotte Moore, Director of Music Lorna Clarke and Head of Radio 2 Helen Thomas face a tricky call - how to replace Ken Bruce at Radio 2 in just over 70 days. 

One hopes they've gamed this for some time. One suspects they didn't really think Ken, at 71, would take his complete show, including Popmaster, to Greatest Hits Radio. He'll have three hours there from April 1st, replacing Mark Goodier, in a schedule that includes others who made their name at the BBC including Simon Mayo, Jackie Brambles, Alex Lester and Andy Crane. Greatest Hits Radio UK reached 3.7m weekly in the latest published listening figures, but you can add Greatest Hits Network of close to 50 'local' stations, which carry much of the same weekday content, totalling 4.1m. Greatest Hits owners are Bauer, and Ben Cooper, a former Controller of Radio 1, runs their UK radio operations. 

Since the departure of Chris Evans, Ken Bruce's mid-morning show has topped the Radio 2 listening figures, returning weekly reach figures up to 8.7m. You feel Ken will do more for Bauer's Greatest Hits than Evans has done for News UK's Virgin Radio.... 

Ear ear

A regular reader asks whether Juri Seppa, composer of music for the Scandinoir Deadwind, on Netflix, might have heard the BBC News theme...

Off piste

Has the BBC's obsession with Davos eased ?  Faisal Islam is already there, but there's a distinct lack of current Beeboids in the events programme.  Over at HardTALK, Stephen Sackur has sat down with WTO DG Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in Geneva, rather than in the resort. Will he make it later ?

The old guard cling on. James Harding is there, with his own "Anthea Turner" in Zanny Minton-Beddoes; Kamal Ahmed gets a seat on two panels, as does Stephanie Flanders. 

 

Churn

Some changes at GB News.  Helen Warner, once in charge of daytime at ITV, has left, after just over a year;  Ben Briscoe, recently part of the superstructure that delivers Piers Morgan Uncensored, has joined; and news grandee Nick Pollard is still there, now delivering training courses on how to steer clear of Ofcom. 

Detail man

Sir Robbie Gibb is a fastidious man. Therefore it is hard to understand why the BBC England Committee,  a sub-group of the BBC Board, which he chairs, has not published minutes since its October 2021 meeting. That's 467 days ago. The committee is supposed to meet three times a year.  

It would be, at the least, instructive to see where the Great Custodian of Impartiality, stands on BBC Local Radio cuts.... 

Columned out

David Aaronovitch is leaving the employment of The Times at the end of February, after 18 years as a columnist.  David, 68, (William Ellis School, a spell at Balliol, and a hisyory degree from Manchester) started his media careers as a researcher on John Birt's Weekend World at ITV, and followed the thought-leader to the BBC as the first editor of On The Record. 

Tony Gallagher took over the editor's chair at The Times in September. 

Sam up

Congratulations to Sam Taylor, anointed as Interim Chief Operating Officer at BBC News, from his current base in Salford as Managing Editor. He fills the large shoes left by Alan Dickson, deemed such a success in the role that he's moved to CFO for the whole organisation.  If Sam gets the gig full-time, there'll presumably be a saving on yet another Saxton Bampfylde finders fee.... 

Range

BBC DG Tim Davie used the phrase 'to be clear' fourteen times in his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee last week.  He managed to avoid 'jeopardy' entirely, but his Chief Product Officer Storm Fagan scored one. 

Up your product

As Tim Davie hurtles towards a digital future ("not proactively putting a date on a digital switchover or anything stupid like that"), it seems we will be plagued by incomprehensible job ads. This an opportunity for those who can work in the USA to joun BBC Studios in New York:

The Product Strategy & Creative Specialist is a hands-on creative role that sits between product design and product strategy in the BBC digital news & streaming business unit. Reporting to the VP of Product Strategy & Creative and working alongside the UX team, this role will help visualize and communicate product strategy across Technology, AdSales, Content strategy, Brand, and the business teams in general for both new and existing products.

Classicjacko

Congratulations ! To Sam Jackson, who'll surely have to change his Twitter handle from Classicjacko as the new Controller of Radio 3. And perhaps use fewer exclamation marks !

Sam, probably just rising 40 (Godalming College, BA 1st in Music University of York), got a taste for radio at Radio York whilst studying for his degree. He also had a spell as a runner on the tv side of the Proms. He joined Classic FM straight from university, leaving finally in 2020.   For five years, Sam also moonlighted as a presenter on the children’s radio station FUN Kids, where he got to talk to an audience of seven-year-olds about Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

He wrote a blog about parenting, which became a 2014 book "Diary of A Desperate Dad: One man's guide to family life from 0 to 5"  (His wife Helen, whom he met in a clarinet duet at college, has born him four children).  His other books include "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Classical Music: ...But Were Too Afraid to Ask", "50 Moments that Rocked the Classical Music World", "Classic FM's Big Book of Classical Music: 1000 years of music in 366 days". Some of these were co-authored by Darren Henley, who spookily moved from ClassicFM to replace Alan Davey (outgoing Controller Radio 3) at the Arts Council. Darren is the man now responsible for trying to shunt the ENO out of London. 

And in other connections, Sam became a Governor of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2015, where Alan Davey was appointed Chair of Governors in 2020.  

Sam's a Portsmouth fan, based in Hampshire. Looks like a lot of train hours travelling to Salford....

MJP

MJP Architects, pivotal to the redevelopment of Broadcasting House, have gone into liquidation. 

Founded in 1972 by Richard MacCormac with Peter Jamieson and David Prichard, projects included Southwark Station, the Wellcome Wing of the Science Museum. Warwick Court in Paternoster Square, the British Embassy in Thailand and a Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre in Cheltenham.

Based in Spitalfields, the practice became an employee benefit trust in 2007, and there have been nine redundancies as a result of the closure. Sir Richard MacCormac died in 2014 after a long illness. 

Why not say hi ?

The day after BBC  Chief Product Officer Storm Fagan discussed recruitment issues with MPs on the Public Accounts Committee comes an ad for a Senior Product Manager, Search and Navigation. It reads like someone dictated it to a cell phone, then put it through some form of Articial Intelligence engine, and never read it back. 

"We’re transforming our Product Teams. We want to ensure that the BBC is the number 1 destination for product. It’s a big dream and we know that we can achieve it but we need to partner with the right people. Come over and trust us with your dreams and ambitions. We’ll take your promise and transform you; offering clear opportunities for professional development and career growth."

"We are the BBC Search & Navigation and we have a remit to help our audience discover the best content, that is most relevant and meaningful to them, by providing them with curated content that caters to their individual needs. It’s so nice of you to drop by! Why not say hi also in your application?"

Meeting

This was not a meeting of minds. 

The MPs on the Public Accounts Committee were unable to get their heads round BBC COO Leigh Tavaziva's surname, with several very bold manglings throughout the session; equally, they failed to extract any clarity from BBC DG Tim Davie on the organisation's digital future. Mr Davie, in particular, was at pains to point out how clear he was being, and how much detail he was ready to share, without a single coherent answer. 

Leigh Tavaziva and Chief Product Officer Storm Fagan had been to wardrobe before the meeting and borrowed Brotherhood of Man outfits. 

Odd

Commons Public Accounts Committee: Tim Davie, BBC DG, sets off his defence of the emasculation of the BBC News Channel with a spurious factoid "Only 1% of the UK population get their news solely from the BBC News Channel" - 660,000 is not a bad figure for this odd 'solus' consumption.

Three off

David Eades, 54 (Kent College and BA French & Politics, Bristol) Tim Willcox, 59 (Taunton School and BA Spanish, Durham) and Joanna Gosling, 52 (Aylesbury School and BA French, Birmingham), according to Jake Kanter at Deadline, have all decided to take a redundancy deal from the BBC, rather than compete for their existing jobs. 

This apparently leaves 15 current employees jostling for six jobs on the merged BBC News and BBC World channel, set to launch in April.

I know Robbie Gibb

A pick-up from the NewsAgents interview with Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan, defending BBC non-executive Sir Robbie Gibb for berating Newsnight producers over coverage of asylum seekers: 

“So what it might have been that he was trying to say, I wasn’t there, I don’t know, is you can’t only present Brexit in a negative light, which would have been defending impartiality, which I would be completely comfortable with because you’ve got to present both sides and you can’t just pick a side and then go down that.

“So it may well be that it was that and I know Robbie Gibb and that is my instinct of what he would have been saying because he’s so passionate about impartiality.”

Stateside

BBC News thought-leader Jonathan Munro flew to New York in June, for £2,600 return, and stayed in the Royalton Hotel for an unspecified number of nights billed at £905.  His oppo, News Digital thought-leader Naja Nielsen flew in from Copenhagen on the same date, for a single price of £740, returning to London from Washington for £680. 

Green milestone

Damian Green has finally taken the chair of the Culture Select Committee, a post he first tilted at in 2015, when John Whittingdale moved on to become one of many Tory Culture Secretaries. 

Mr Green (Reading School, PPE Balliol, and BBC Financial Unit) steps in while Julian Knight (Chester Catholic High School, BA History Hull and BBC Finance and Business Unit) is suspended, pending investigation of allegations of sexual assault, made to the Metropolitan Police. Mr Knight denies any wrongdoing.  

Bob off

Former BBC Director of Radio & Music, Group Managing Director and Bringer-of-June-Sarpong, Bob Shennan is leaving the BBC after 36 years. Recently dubbed 'Covid' Bob for his magisterial Zooms during the pandemic, he was sent to BBC Studios as their first 'Director of Audio' in March last year, charged with  'growing the audio business with colleagues across the organisation'.  There's no obvious product yet... 

DG Tim is sad to see him go "I will miss his wise counsel, extensive knowledge and calm, collaborative approach." 

Bob will be 61 this March; we don't know his current salary, as he's paywalled at BBC Studios. As Group Managing Director he was on £310k. 

Another month

Monthly reach figures for our warring news channels in December... (November in brackets)

TalkTV 2.02 (2.27m) 

GB News 2.87m (2.5m)

Sky News 8.47m (8.62m)

BBC News  11.48m (11.2m)

Alternative means

A little late in picking up on this, but clearly pleased the views of a broadcasting luminary chime with mine - extract from a letter to the Financial Times by Sir Peter Bazalgette, asking for radio and tv to be maintained via general broadcasting beyond 2030. 

“We’ve already seen an undersea gas pipeline blown up. International infrastructure has become a credible target. What if the internet were compromised by the destruction of the satellites and the cables it depends upon? In a time of crisis, how would a government get its crucial messages out (think Covid and lockdown)?

"There’s a powerful argument for maintaining alternative means of distribution. Chiefly, DTT for TV and FM for radio. It’s a matter of national resilience and it would be a foolish government or regulator which ignored this.”

Back in stride

Students of plurality in broadcast news will note that Darren Grimes, who left GB News as a weekend presenter back in November, reappeared this weekend as a guest of Calvin Robinson, who moved into his slot.

Detail

An exciting line-up in front of the Commons Public Accounts Committee this Thursday sees a first Parliamentary outing for BBC Chief Product Officer Storm Fagan, alongside DG Tim Davie and COO Leigh Tavaziva.  Just before Christmas, Storm was named as one of the top 100 women in tech to watch in 2023.

The MPs will have as their text a report from the National Audit Office, which baldly said that the BBC's digital plans were lacking in detail,

Upselling

I bet the BBC still wishes it was a property developer. Taylor Wimpey have just started marketing the first of 377 homes they're building on the former BBC Wales/Cymru HQ site at Llandaff.  Parc Llandaf straddles Llantrisant Road and consists of 10.5 acres which used to be Broadcasting House and 6.95 acres at Ty Oldfield on the opposite side of the street.

The Midford is a four bedroom, two bathroom, two parking spaces, detached house with a north-facing rear garden plot and costs £509,995. Other models are available, at £805,000.

Thorts

OK, I can find two recent local stories on the BBC News website about hospitals trying hard to move well patients out of their care. But, as an alternative to ambulances parked up at A&E as a backdrop, can one of the BBC's substantial health cluster do an 8am to 8pm shift with a ward sister trying to free up beds ?

I'd recommend a geriatric ward at one of the two large hospitals on the North Wales coast. 

I'd like to follow up with a feature on the circular problems of the infirm over-80s. They are famously prone to falls, but now are no longer a priority. So they either lie where they drop, or unqualified family and friends risk further trauma to broken bones by moving them back to bed - commercial care assistants won't take the risk. If they choose to wait for a paramedic assessment - sometimes for 12 hours or more, they risk dehydration, urine infections and more. So then they become a priority, and the circle continues.

My third feature would try to compare the pay, typical hours and training costs of the nurses and care assistants who deal with the consequences of urination and defecation of bedridden patients in hospitals, care homes and their own homes. 

And my fourth would look at nurses' pay in France, Germany and the USA. Crikey, I might get a gig in "News Content Planning"....

Shaping the digital BBC

There's a vacancy to be deputy editor of BBC Worklife. You have to be able to work in the States, though it's possible to be based in London. You'll be number 2 to Meredith Turits, who is based in Greenwich, Connecticut - an hour and 20 by train to the BBC New York offices. 

This biographical stuff is from her website. 

She specializes in workforce and labor economics, social science, behavioral psychology, and literature (but she’s written about and edited nearly everything). Currently, Meredith is the editor of BBC Worklife. She is a founding editor of Bustle, and has served in other senior editorial roles at both legacy media brands and startups. Please do inquire about freelance writing commissions.

Meredith is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University (and, generally unfortunately, a devoted St. John’s basketball fan). She has certifications in women’s entrepreneurship from Cornell University as well as behavioral finance from Duke University. She attended the Yale Writer’s Workshop for fiction in 2022.

Traditional fare

Hats off to BBC Sounds listeners: despite the relentless promotion of content clearly aimed at the 'yoof'' market, they seek out their own, unheralded favourites. 

So the most-listened-to content over Christmas was the serialisation of three Miss Marple stories, not by Agatha, but by authors who are also fans. They were all narrated by Scottish actress Georgie Glen - also making a festive appearance in Call The Midwife as Millicent Higgins. 

Scoops

Those tuning in to the BBC News channel at 2230 weeknights will find the newspaper nuggets and arising conversations replaced by something rather more cerebral. HardTalk, and its lead interviewer, the hugely-brainy Stephen Sackur, gets another outing with the domestic audience - recent guests include Evgenia Kara-Murza, Wes Streeting, Ericka Huggins, David Friedberg, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Yan Rachinsky and London Breed. Yes, it's a hoot. 

Cui bono ?

No less than three former Daily Mirror editors are involved in the deal that sees TalkTV output moving up the dial on Freeview. 

Local TV Chairman David Montgomery is taking bits of TalkTV across his eight local channels, which appear on channels 7 and 8 on Freeview. Richard Wallace of TalkTV gets mid-morning, mid-afternoon and primetime for his output, including Piers Morgan. Prior to this deal, Mr Montgomery's schedule, available in Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Teesside, North Wales and Tyne & Wear,  was packed with offerings such as 'Judge Judy'. 

Another fine mess

Interviewing BBC News presenters for their own jobs follows an unpleasant tradition that has persisted inside the Corporation since the days of John Birt. 

First step in the process: redefine the job in some marginal way. Then invite all current postholders to apply for fewer 'new' jobs. Then, through 'tests' and 'competence score cards' kid yourself that the people you selected and trained to do the job many years ago are now not good enough to keep on the books. 

It seems only presenters currently working on the few remaining UK news segments of the News Channel are being subject to this process. A marginally-fairer process would also examine the skills and talents of those presenting the World News bits, as it moves to swallow up the domestic agenda. But, hey, it's the modern caring, sharing BBC, ain't it, Tim ? 

And more medalling

We missed a gong for composer George Fenton.... 

 

Resolve 3

An esteemed and longstanding correspondent of the blog wishes to add another cliche he'd like to hear less of in 2023. It's a Clive Myrie special; "Here's So-and-So with all the sport..." 

"Clive promised us ‘all the sport’ but there was nothing about Tom Pidcock deciding not to defend his Cyclo-cross world title."