The click-hungry weekend curators at BBC News online must be tickled pink with "What's driving men to get penis fillers, despite the risks?", number 3 in the site's list of most-read items, at time of writing.
It seems to be a simple write-up from an edition of Inside Health, first broadcast on March 3rd, and clearly then stuffed in a back pocket to fill holes in August....
As we note 20 years of The One Show, it's time to look for more changes in the basic BBC1 weekday line-up, to get Mr Brittin's BBC in the front foot.
Peter Fincham's idea for The One Show, a nightly magazine format with elements of the old "Tonight" in the Cliff Michelmore era and bits of Wogan, dispatched with a rag-bag of 7pm offers - "What Not To Wear", "The Real Story", "Watchdog", "Should I Worry ?", "Didn't They Do Well ?", "Airport" and the dreaded "Regional Variations". Cutely, the Fincham commission also saved money, which was re-directed to drama, comedy and light entertainment.
It's now pretty clear that now, during The One Show, most of those remaining in the family living room have a chat about what to watch next. Around 2.5m stay for EastEnders. It's not enough; the soap has become a bed blocker. People are scanning Netflix, Prime, Disney and Apple for a new film or a blockbuster series. The BBC's 'big offer' should start at 7.30pm. Two one-hour 'bangers', followed by a half-hour comedy/panel show, to get to the 10pm news, still holding up well.
Meanwhile, Matt, tell them schedulers to drop at least one episode of the Pointless comfort-blanket, and give the nation back a live-ish 5pm pop show...
Messing around with colanders seems to have disrupted tv audiences yesterday evening. The biggest audience of the day was for regional news slot on the BBC at 6.30pm, adding up to 3.5m. The preceeding 6pm bulletin came second on 2.9m, and the 10pm was third at 2.8m. Not banging, but top of the linear charts, Mr Brittin.
Fourth place went to The One Show with an average of 2.4m.
As we head for new, unexplored areas of the thermometer, heed the words of interim BBC News boss, Jonathan Munro “As this summer’s heatwaves have proved, up-to-the minute and accurate weather information has never been more important."
This was putting a brave face on plans which will reduce the number of national weather presenter roles on the BBC from 11 to 4.5. These 4.5 will be split between London and Salford, with an additional four weather "reporters" (presumably cheaper than presenters) based at the Met Office headquarters in Exeter producing online material, video, and social media updates
From the national press, we learn that some of the current roster of 11 may be interested in voluntary redundancy. But if six don't come forward, Mr Munro may find himself interviewing the remainder in competition. A reminder - the 11 are Ben Rich (41), Tomasz Schafernaker (47), Darren Bett (58), Louise Lear (58), Elizabeth Rizzini (50), Matt Taylor (50), Chris Fawkes (43), Sarah Keith-Lucas (44), Stav Danaos (48), Simon King (45), and Helen Willetts (54).
Mr Munro is presumably also facing an interview, to see if he can become more than interim; perhaps explaining why he thought the Panorama/Trump edit was acceptable journalism.
The pen that devoted a year to poetry has turned to caustic prose. Huw Edwards has lashed out at most pillars of Welsh society after the judges of the National Eisteddfod's main poetry prize failed to even place his verses. In a post entitled 'Epic Cant', he rips into the Taffia, some by name.
First, 'Eisteddfodd bigwigs':
"Public life in Wales is dominated by a ‘virtuous’ elite — a mob of job-swappers who regularly pop up in different roles. They were out in force last week in their natural habitats: lavish motorhomes with wardrobe-sized wine fridges; Gaddafi-scale tents with space aplenty for druidic cavorting; ‘hospitality’ areas for the more discerning."
Then, the Monday 3rd August edition of BBC-produced Welsh news programme Newyddion, which led on Huw's entry.
"Unable to shake off the tabloid virus, the Newyddion team — spearheaded, it seems, by an individual called Jacob Morris (described to me by one of his colleagues in terms too offensive to print here) — manufactured a scandal which took the limelight away, quite unforgivably, from the deserving winner of the Crown poetry competition."
The item included the critical views of actress Sera Cracoft, who features in Welsh soap Pobol Y Cwm:
"Not content with this latest spasm of vengeance, they then sought the predictably hostile views of a soap actress. And for good measure, they interviewed the President of the Eisteddfod Court on the merits of banning people with criminal records from competing.
It was, as we say in the trade, a full-on monstering."
In parenthesis:
"The Newyddion team should thank me for this post. More people will read this — and learn of their existence — than will watch a typical edition of their programme."
Huw then monsters Ashok Ahir, who was President/Chair of the Eisteddfod when they ditched Huw from the Gorsedd of Bards:
"We had ‘enjoyed’ a rather tricky relationship when he was, in my view, a distinctly unimpressive manager at BBC Wales. Formal letters of Gorsedd ‘cancellation’ were sent in Ashok’s name to my elderly mother’s home — while I was being treated in a secure psychiatric unit. Those letters, which added to my mother’s distress, were not seen by me until my discharge months later."
The Florida court that allowed Donald Trump to 'reframe' his claim against the BBC has now been presented with a new 40-page schedule, seeking damages which still add up to $10bn. His lawyers have used their time to back up their claim of consistent deliberate malice on the part of the BBC, using quotes from Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch, post-Panorama.
Disclosure of documents has given Trump's team the initial contract with October Films to make the programme...
"Brief details: Date: 4' April 2024
Attendees: Neil Breakwell / Leo Telling
It seems all BBC staff are after a selfie with new DG Matt Brittin...
Why, it's BBC Director General Matt Brittin with former colleague Pedro Pina, buff Vice President of YouTube in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Some clear thinking from former BBC correspondent Humphrey Hawkesley:
"If the BBC wants the public to pay willingly for its services, it needs a modern system built on clarity, convenience and persuasion. A future licence fee should be attached to individuals and their devices, not bricks and mortar."
The BBC, like many other parts of the media, embraced Jason Arday when he became the youngest black professor at Cambridge.
He also previously made some Radio 4 appearances when an Associate Professor at Durham University; Salford religion and ethics producer Dan Tierney used him in an edition of The Moral Maze on racial justice in 2020, and produced a Lent Talk in 2021 in which "Dr Jason Arday reflects on the health and social barriers he has faced and overcome throughout his life with a positive and grateful outlook."
Over at Liverpool John Moores University, their website seems to have been cleared of pictures of Jason with his Ph D supervisor, Professor Phil Vickerman. That doctorate transformed the future for a boy who left school with GSCEs in PE and textiles, and was guided from PE teacher to sociologist.
Another media connection comes with Jason's ghostwriter, Eve Claxton, credited co-author of Great and Unfortunate Things, coming out from Simon & Schuster this month. Eve, from Manchester, now lives and works in Brooklyn, and has produced "StoryCorps", a weekly oral history project for NPR, a bit like Radio 4's Listening Project.
No enormous swings, up or down, in the latest quarterly radio listening figures. And if you're judging performance year on year, please note that the RAJAR monitors have adjusted their figures of the UK population over the age of 15 up to 59.047m, a 1.4% increase on last year. So, to stand still, you have to do better than that...
All BBC Radio together fell 1.3% in weekly reach year on year, though listeners that remained were listening slightly longer - an average of 14.3 hours per week. Matt Deegan reminds us that, whilst Radio 2 remains the biggest single station in the country, their weekly reach of 12.6m is their lowest figure for 20 years. Interim breakfast host Gary Davies can be very pleased with figures up 3% on Scott Mills in 2025.
At Radio 3, Sam Jackson's breakfast banker, Tom McKinney is up 10% year on year, and getting back to Petroc Trelawny's levels. A quiet mention for Aaron Paul, the football commentator doing a straightforward news job on Radio London breakfast - up 79% year on year. At Times Radio, breakfast reach is up 18% year on year; though at Talk, where are lot less effort is put into a Jeremy Kyle simulcast, he's up 28%.
The BBC News website has some sizzlers on offer today, and it's not even the weekend.
Are summer sandals killing your feet ?
The cost of being single – and how friends are teaming up to beat it
Vegetables to get smaller and more expensive due to hot weather, farmers warn
And from around the new, improved Nations digital offering:
Built in 1909, The Maida Vale Roller Skating Palace and Club was said to be largest indoor-roller-skating rink in Europe, with a capacity of 2,900, an orchestra balcony, viewing galleries and a 'refreshment lounge'. It was the idea of American entrepreneur Louis Napoleon Schoenfeld, who had moved to the UK in 1899; he commissioned British commercial architects Lionel G Detmar and Theodore Gregg. .
The BBC announced plans for new music studios at Stratford in June 2018, and talked about moving there in "2022/23".
A number of readers have already suggested I "write up" Rod Liddle. I've never been sure where I stood on his very extreme 'strengths and weaknesses'. His ability to confuse and confound will continue after a very untimely death.
Let's add some odd notes to the record. Keith Flett, a contemporary in Middlesborough, thinks his teenage interest in the SWP was really to get gigs for his punk group Dangerbird under the Rock Against Racism umbrella. At the other end of his life, his death has been mourned by Nigel Farage, Darren Grimes, Dan Wootton, Kevin O'Sullivan and Ross Kemp.
He was certainly a different voice when he arrived at the BBC after three years at the South Wales Echo, and three years working for the Labour Party, whilst also taking a degree (a wank degree?) in social psychology at the LSE. His accent, bearing the London twangs of Sidcup, embedded til nine years old, mangled with years in Nunthorpe, was different, and, depending on the meeting, profanities were abundant. I have to say, in his early years, not much of his iconoclasm made it to air on programmes like The World This Weekend. When I shared a brief time with him on Today, as another assistant editor, he was attracted to any newspaper story headlined "Village of Fear", and like another Mad Rod before him (Rod Pounsett) drove hard to get the people at the heart of stories to, at least, a phone interview. Often, these stories were in The Daily Mail.
Management wanted to 'develop' Rod. They sent him to edit The World Tonight, which passed without alarum, before letting him run Today. The programme was well staffed, and Rod began to enjoy "off-the wall" appointments at reporter and junior producer level. He also began to enjoy the slight celebrity the role brought. The problem was that you couldn't see a further promotion ahead; the change of career to columnist and controversialist might even been concocted by friends in management.
As he launched into this part of his 'journey', let's remember there were regular appearances on "Call My Bluff", relaunched with Fiona Bruce; a forgotten Sunday morning yoof politics show with Kate Silverton on BBC2; and many panel show appearances on Radio 4. One suspects his circle of chums drove him to believe there was more money in expressing deliberately contrarian views in newspaper columns. He was certainly better at it.
Age, red wine and cigarettes puffed Rod up from a John Cooper Clarke into a Frankie Howerd. In recent years he returned to the North East, shared recipes for pease pudding, and walked and walked with his dog. Trips to London, in hotels, for News International's shilling, were loucher. His chosen party, the 'continuity' SDP, allegedly conservative-left, made pacts with Reform UK.
It was hard to tell whether and when he meant what he wrote. Often, with extreme leery Benny Hill-ery, he just made your jaw drop. In later years he repeated the belief that Clause 28 was 'right', that the abortion debate should still be a live issue, and that the BBC was consistently beastly to Israel. He was nostalgic for life as a teenager in Nunthorpe, and wanted some form of return to the values of those times; or did he ?
Huw 'Dylan' Edwards has shared a long poem on his Substack site, in Welsh and English. 1015 words in Welsh, 1213 in English.
It's on this year's theme set by the National Eisteddfod for the Bardic Poetry Crown - Achnabod, translated variously as 'Recognition' or 'Knowing'. Huw heads his Substack posting "Knowing Me, Knowing You, Ahaa"
Following tradition, Huw has given himself a pseudonym, Gelyn, which Huw translates as 'Enemy'. 'Foe' would be an alternative. But has he actually entered in the competition ?
Two years ago, following a unanimous vote at the Eisteddfod Court meeting, the Board of Trustees terminated Huw Edwards' membership of the Eisteddfod and expelled him from Gorsedd Cymru, an honour bestowed in 2022. The rules of the poetry competition demand that the judges make their decision without knowing the identity of the entrants, though the organisers do. We'll know the winner at 4pm this afternoon. Has Huw made the journey to Llantwd ?
One hopes there's some creative thinking going on at the Treasury. If the licence fee is a 'busted flush', they'll need to come up with a viable alternative, that can be supported and sold.
Whatever options appear in the White Paper, most of the papers will condemn them as a 'tv tax'. The OBR already count funds raised through the licence fee as a tax, so the problem is not a huge change in the burden of taxation, it's the difference between a fixed impost and "progressive taxation" as called for this week by Rebecca Long Bailey.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has previously rejected the idea of adding it to Council Tax, but the BBC still thinks it's a good idea. It's possible Lisa's been briefed on Burnham's Deepest Thoughts, and that Labour may risk real changes to the current system of supporting the work of local councils, the police and fire services. I think, if Council Tax stays as it is, there's a risk of "BBC Avoidance" tying up magistrates' courts event more than with the licence fee; there could well be a politically-driven, newspaper supported campaign to leave the BBC precept out of people's payments, at least to tie up collection resources.
As ever, I will mention my view that something could be raised on the back of the means of delivery; in this case a levy on broadband providers. They are not 'licenced' by Ofcom, but subject to a General Authorisation. The Government currently 'gives' to the broadband companies by supporting Project Gigabit to the tune of £5bn up to 2032, but also takes away from the providers by charging business rates on some of their infrastructure. They all claim hardship, but a levy collected via their bills would at least have some relationship with media consumption in the future.
I know it's hot, late and August, but I feel there could be more analysis on the BBC website of the Manchester mayoral election results. OK so only 500,000 voted, but that's still 250 times the size of an average opinion poll....
A tweet from the BBC's Ione Wells (St Pauls, Marlborough and Keble, Oxford) "Some news: I’m moving to Washington this autumn to become a BBC North America Correspondent.
I’ll have been the BBC’s last South America correspondent as my post is closing in the cuts."
This is where I just don't get the BBC's Global Strategy. Can you zoom to the top in the USA's news providers without a correspondent in South America ? I thought that Hispanics and Latinos made up 1 in 5 of the US population. Do leaders like Jonathan Munro and Richard Burgess actually believe South America is unimportant ?
