Golden oldies

In this week of Five Live 20th birthday celebrations, here's the original "up to the hour" jingle from 1994, part of a huge package created by Allan Coates (of late-ish era The Hollies, from 1981 to 2004) and Kim Goody (former cast member of ITV Saturday morning show No 73, alongside Sandi Toksvig).


Mike Lewis, Head of Sport, lighted upon Allan and Kim working as The Voice and Music Company, I remember the day the first tapes arrived, with various editors and Controller Jenny Abramsky assembling in Studio 1A, and ruminating on where to add the ident. Jenny, trained as a Studio Manager, felt a music edit was required, and razor blades flashed. I suspect she still might think her version was the one we used.

If you played the up to the hour jingle at 59.06 on the clock, it ended exactly at the top of the hour. We never used pips, but some programmes prided themselves on hitting the clock exactly. Whereas the drive time show, launched as John Inverdale Nationwide, was a programme you really couldn't set your watch to...

Allan and Kim went on to do launch stings for News 24, packages for Sky, At The Races and many more. They're still in business, now as Soho Square Studios.

In rooting around the web for stuff from the launch, I found this picture of a car sticker. Simon Calder has written about the difficulty various add agencies had in finding an opening theme; the first wave of posters featured "Follow Mike", with the conceit that "Mike", a microphone, would take you to the heart of news and sport, on the end of a wiggly wire. It didn't last long...

Tradesmen

Anyone concerned about The Telegraph's Five Pillars and whether or not they'll ever support an Entablature, is, apparently, invited to The Plumber's Arms in Lower Belgrave St, SW1 tonight.

The newspaper's NUJ chapel is meeting from 6.30pm, and "snacks" are on offer; all are welcome, "members or not", to raise issues of concern.

Creative carpets

Life continues to mirror art at the BBC, as we await tonight's first episode of the comedy/documentary, W1A.

A member of staff has complained to staff organ Ariel about garish new carpets on the sixth and seventh floors of New Broadcasting House, replacing those just 18 months old, and the appearance of railings around a kitchen area.

A chief adviser to Danny Cohen (how many advisers does he have ?) replies that the changes are in response to staff feedback that the areas in question "did not feel like creative spaces, and lacked character".

"Once the work is completed in the next month, the sixth floor will have a 'Welcome to Television' theme and the seventh floor will have the feel of an outside street scape. The committee also made the decision to change the flooring to give these areas a unique sense of identity and the previous carpet is being re-used elsewhere in the building. The railings around the hot desking area on the seventh floor will be part of 'Albert Square' with the outside of the meeting room branded as the 'Queen Vic'. We want to make our space feel inspiring and creative - a home for BBC Television that reflects our ambitions as the very best broadcaster and producer in the world."

I remember workshops from more than five years ago when we sort of agreed that the BBC was too territorial and impermeable - staff moving between departments found hostility if they walked through "other people's space". All this set dressing is nonsense - especially trying to enshrine "tv" spaces when the future is, we are told, multi-platform.  I try not to be too rude here, but I suggest people will know that the sixth and seventh floors belong to television because they get busy late, finish early and close at weekends.

Style over content

When the BBC News guys say BBC3 is moving to online only, it's probably right. Of course, the BBC Trust could reject the saving, and that's where the Twitter campaign will go. Who will be fielded to describe this move as best solution ?  Tony Hall, James Purnell, Danny Cohen or Zai Bennett - we'll see tomorrow.

Shifting BBC3 online (where, if you only watch catchup, it's all currently free) marks the third attempt the BBC has attempted in modern times to connect with yoof via a brand. The first was DEF II, a twice weekly insertion on BBC2, which ran from 1988 to 1994, edited by Janet Street-Porter, with some shows hosted by Normski, a rapper, currently with Hoxton FM. Normski and Janet were said to be walking out.

The second set of DEF II titles,spookily, included a hammer trying to crack a nut.



In October 2007 the BBC had another go, with Switch, under "teen Tsar" Andy Parfitt. This had programmes on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons, Radio 1 on Sunday evenings, and a web portal that included Slink, an online magazine for teenage girls ("my boyfriend was born a girl" "Try the Slink Love Calculator"), and The Cut, an online drama that ran weekdays for a year.

One daily programme was the 5.19 show, made in Grafton House. You only need to try a minute or so of this to judge standards.



In March 2010, Mark Thompson sounded the death knell for Switch, for not "reaching its target audience effectively. Although the BBC should continue to target younger teens, it must accept that its role will be secondary to that of Channel 4 and other broadcasters". I'm not sure if the Teen Tsar had his salary reduced at this stage.

Stop it with all the brand stuff - make quality programmes teenagers want to watch, and bring back some contemporary music, if not Top of The Pops, once a week on network tv. Don't pretend Glastonbury does it - average age of attendees is now over 35.

Fit for a king

The Royal Family are very careful about their brand and how it's exploited - things are different when you're dead but not buried. So we have Richard III Fairtrade chocolate, produced in 100g bars for the souvenir shop in Leicester Cathedral. Packaging describes him as "The King in Leicester". Let's hope they've got additional sticky labels if the the bones go to York....

The confectionery is packaged up by The Meaningful Chocolate Company, based in Warrington, who've had to learn a bit about branding themselves. This year, their chocolate "faith-based" advent calendar is largely red - last year's was purple, but through their legal team, they've been advised that Cadbury "own" purple packaging of chocolate in the UK.

Lonely

The BBC is still picking over the scabs after the sale of Lonely Planet travel guides by BBC Worldwide. A report by BBC non-executive director Brian McBride (also chairman of online fashion shop ASOS) reveals as well as losing £80m on the resale, the BBC spent £20m trying to improve things - making total losses up there with the Digitial Media Initiative.

Lonely Planet seems now to be chugging along quite nicely, and the BBC news website, like many others, leapt on its 2014 list of best places to visit. It shed 80 jobs (out of 450) when taken over by Nashville-based NC2 Media earlier this year, but is now recruiting in both London and Nashville. In September NC2 bought Passport to Adventure, which has produced programmes for US public tv for nearly 20 years.

Directors of NC2 Media include two names that will be familiar to BBC journalists outside London: Michael Rosenblum, who spent many years proselytising around local and regional newsrooms about VJs - video journalists - and his partner Lisa Lambden, 17 years with the BBC, whicn ended rather acrimoniously in 2007.  

NC2 is funded by Brad M Kelley, of Franklin, Tennessee, the fourth biggest private landowner in the States. He made his millions in cigarettes, but now is more interested in thoroughbred racehorses and conservation.

Maverick

All change at BBC Worldwide, as Tim Davie tosses away two years of work on a BBC Global iPlayer, in favour of a portal-based approach to flogging programmes direct.

The BBC has never rid itself of those who believe controlling the front door is the key to world dominance. Auntie has tried, and failed, to build beeb.com, search engines, EPGs, and a continuing series of "personalisable" home pages. Tim is expecting a lot of this new portal - required to deliver news, streams and downloads, and ads. Good luck. Baseline is 60 million.

He's also set a good challenge for a marketing brainstorm. What would you call a new channel that will "target male audiences with a blend of content that raises the bar in the factual entertainment space and an approach which captures the maverick spirit of the BBC's best shows" ?

Yentob ?
Dyke ?
Repeater ?
Chauvinism in a modern world ?

Extra shot

BBC Television's Controller of Business for Knowledge and Daytime, Lisa Opie, this summer opened a new cafe in Berkhamsted, with business partner Debbie Manners. It shouldn't matter too much about what BBC staff do in their own time - but sadly Lisa's blog about this venture suggests there was real pressure opening the caff and keeping up with the day job. The blog has been removed overnight, but the Mail has significant extracts.

Lisa joined the BBC in 2012, as part of a restructuring of "Vision", from top five indie Twofour Digital. Previously she'd been head of content at Channel 5, and spent 13 years as MD of Flextech.  Here's a little vid Lisa found time to make explaining her BBC job in August.

• Rod Liddle reveals in today's Sunday Times that his salary in his last year as Editor of Today, in 2003, was just over £60k. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator, that's equivalent to £80,335 in 2012. Wouildn't mind betting that Katz is doing better than that at Newsnight...

Uniform

The BBC Trust says Countryfile broke guidelines on Product Prominence, when two presenters wore the same branded clothing - RAB - in two editions in November and December.

Twitter indicates some of the presenters love clothes.

@cress2s the orange one will never retire! watch out for it in Gloucestershire in a couple of weeks. #tangoglow
— Julia Bradbury (@JuliaBradbury) November 19, 2012

East by North West ?

The Sunday Express says the cast of Eastenders are worried that they too might be shipped to Salford, and have asked The Management for reassurances to the contrary.  The reassurance is half-hearted: "We are committed to Elstree until 2014".  This is a BBC that once was "committed" to Television Centre, and recently decided to flog buildings at White City, three of which were only opened in 2004. A decision to either extend the Elstree lease or acquire new premises needs to be taken during 2012.

Helpfully a spokesman for the Peel Group tells the Express there are 150 acres still available at Salford Quays, awaiting instructions from clients like the BBC and ITV.   However, moving Albert Square to the Olympic site, which was at one stage under discussion, apparently fell because the outdoor stage set would have been "overlooked" - there is an irrational anxiety at Eastenders that people care about their plot-lines. There's nowhere at MediaCityUK that wouldn't have flat-dwellers with a prime view.

The real reason that Eastenders didn't move to East London was life-style protection sought by the core cast, who have established themselves in a cosy Home Counties loop from Ruislip through Rickmansworth to Radlett.

My bet ?  They'll be saved from the provinces (or, worse, Wales) by a deal to move as a lead tenant to Pinewood, now spookily controlled by Peel.



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Brand awareness

BBC Director of Worldwide, John Smith, I think it is fair to say, likes a bit of style.  His annual write-up in the Sunday Telegraph pictures him in a sharp suit in front of the Tardis.   And he is, after all, a non-executive director of Burberry.

So perhaps it's not a surprise that he's snapped up the services of one Deborah Rowland from Gucci, where she was Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources.  Her title in W12 will be more prosaic - a mere People Director.  Her career as a director at Gucci lasted 65 days - but she's no shrinking violet on the old skill set; her profile on Linkedin carries the banner "Pioneer in leadership thinking and practice, and co-author of 'Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works'".  It's available at £7.50 off from Amazon. 

Deborah boasts a double first in Arch and Anth from New Hall, Cambridge University, where she also found time to be Social Secretary and chair the Rag Committee.

Extra Extra

Neil Midgely in The Telegraph has discovered what a range of radio producers know - that the BBC is stockpiling programmes with a view to changing the much-loved Radio 7 into the marketeers' and strategists' dream, Radio 4 Extra, in Spring 2011. 

In many ways, 7 has been the most successful of the BBC's digital offerings - offering largely comedy and drama from the archive round the clock, with a daily burst of children's programmes.   The audience has grown from just over 200,000 in 2003, to a million at the end of 2010.   Clearly Tim Davie, and thinkers John Tait and Will Jackson, believe the "shift, preview and repeat" mantra of ITV2 etc is the right way for the service, and are confident it'll go through the Trust on the nod in January. 

Mr Davie has said 4 Extra will preserve the best of Radio 7, but there will be fans who need convincing by a detailed schedule.  The production staff will have mixed feelings - the increased ties with Radio 4 probably mean they're safe from a late run to Salford, but it will be a very different station from the one they joined. Actors, playwrights and comedy writers will lose repeat fees, and there be less children's output.  Gillian Reynolds and the radio critics will go apoplectic at the increased cross trailing at every Radio 4 junction when the thing starts - but will there be enough fire all round to start #saveBBCradio7 ?

World Service x 2

What difference should it make to the World Service that in future it will be funded from the licence-fee ?  Mark Thompson has said the BBC may in the long-term be able to invest more than the Foreign Office, once the funding switch is made in 2014. The problem is that the cuts imposed before then may leave it seriously weakened.

This is a real opportunity to think differently about how the BBC broadcasts abroad, and there's a risk that in scrambling towards new structures and governance, the licence-payer is left out of the equation. Simply put, the UK licence payer is not interested much in the World Service (on radio in English), unless they're on holiday - or they have ex-pat friends and relatives. The BBC can and should turn this to their advantage.  Shorn of FCO constraints, the BBC should plan to double its radio output in English around the world. 

One service should unashamedly be providing the "best of British".  News, football commentaries, classic and new comedies and dramas, music shows and more, all co-commissioned with Radio 4, 3, 2, 6Music and 5Live.  The shows could be sponsored (more easily handled than ads) to help with the additional costs of worldwide rights. Big multinationals would bite your hand off to be associated with top drama reaching 34 million or so English-speakers around the globe.  And, yes, individual elements should be available to listen again on a sponsored international i-Player.

The other service should be a 24 hour news channel, available currently to listen online and within Bush House, but, once you listen abroad, squeezed into a mixed schedule depending on your region.  The output needs to be more heavily BBC-branded, but also to stick even more rigidly to a global take on the world.  So-called "partner" stations are currently allowed to slot bits into their output without cash or kudos going back to Auntie, in the chase for audience figures.   And some of the current affairs output takes regional slants depending on where you are in the 24 hour clock, in what I think is another misguided hunt for audience.  In that this service already "exists", it's a low-cost option, but could be made cheaper by more shared programming and production with R4 and R5Live news teams. Aligning World Service news writers with BBC World.com and BBC World could produce some more efficiencies (and help the reputation of the junior services).   The modern licence-fee payer would, I hope, see the sense in this being advert and sponsorship-free, but in a transparent world, expects good cost control. 

So, BBC World Radio and BBC News Radio - a matched pair, resolving the conflicts of one channel trying to do two jobs. Double the transmission costs ?  Not really. Digital delivery is growing around the world, and good quality radio stations have proved an asset in selling digital television. The hunt here is not first for audience figures, which will sound odd to radio folk; it's for value for the licence payer. And I believe that if you build two better, clearly-defined radio stations, the world will come to them.  For quality programmes, and respected news judgements.

In the interest of shorter posts, I'll come back to the language services another time. They do fit in to a licence-fee funded future - and can help make all the above even better. 

62 West Wallaby Street

BBC Learning and Aardman Productions have set up a free roadshow to promote the latest BBC1 offering, Wallace and Grommit's World of Invention.  Shopping centres are apparently the preferred venue for two day stops, so it's Cabot Circus, Bristol; Bluewater, Kent; Silverburn, South Glasgow; thecentre:mk, Milton Keynes;  Westfield, Derby, and yes, The Trafford Centre, Peel Avenue, Manchester, owned  by The Peel Group.

 Found via How Do.

• Found via Lord Sugar: this week's Apprentice sees the teams opening pop-up fashion outlets in the Trafford Centre, Peel Avenue, Manchester. 

New Shield

After two years spinning (mainly for Douglas Alexander) at the Department for International Development, former BBC political correspondent James Hardy is back at the BBC, looking after the reputation of "Journalism", and Gold Commander Mark Byford.

James, once described by the Guardian as a Harry Enfield look-a-like, had a distinguished career as a hack - as both royal and political editor for the Press Association, home affairs editor at the Sunday Telegraph and political editor of the Daily Mirror.

Previous reputation manager for news, John Shield, left in May, to join bus and rail operator Go Ahead as Director of Corporate Affairs.

The saga of Smooth

Smooth Radio goes national in October, with Simon Bates, at the age of 62, getting his first go as "pop" breakfast dj. He'll be followed in the schedule by Mark Goodier, 49, Dave Lincoln 57 (estimated), Carlos, 43, and Andy Peebles, 61. Until 2007, most of the frequencies used by Smooth were owned by Saga Radio.

Put your shirt on it

There's a funny bunch of shirt sponsors in the Premier League this year - with FxPro (you too can be a foreign exchange dealer) and 188BET (online gambling) hedging things by having two teams each - Fulham and Villa, and Bolton and Wigan, respectively.

The big money, however goes to four clubs, according to figures from Sporting Intelligence. Topping this year's list are Standard Chartered Bank, giving £20m to Liverpool this year, from operating profits of $5.15 billion in 2009. Alongside are AON, Chicago-based re-insurance specialists, giving Manchester United £20m from much slimmer profits of $747m. Then comes Samsung, whose price to Chelsea p.a is around £13.8m - easily spared from operating profits in electronics alone estimated at 11 trillion won in 2009 (even at 2,000 won to the pound)

The puzzle is British software company, Autonomy, who've signed up with Spurs for £10m this year, out of operating profits of $329m (around £210m) in 2009. An odd marketing ploy for a company who really sells B2B, against rivals such as IBM and Oracle. One presumes CEO Dr Michael Lynch, born in Ireland, but brought up in Essex, is a fan.

BBC, BBC, BBC

The BBC is asking for planning permission to put three logos on three buildings at MediaCityUK (spotted by the ever-reliable CDX on the excellent thread at Skyscraper City).

More interesting will be a decision on what to call the buildings, currently affectionately known as A, B and C. And a way for the public to find which one they should go to....

Trial and error

Something has gone wrong with learning at Radio 1. As they were being pursued by the Radio Centre over Coldplay promotion for the Viva La Vida tour and album ("Radio 1 Presents Coldplay" was the title of a special website,which had links to ticket agencies) they got into bed with U2, and the complaint re-doubled. In the end, the marketing team took the rap for the logo "U2=BBC".

July 15th last year was Harry Potter Day on Radio 1, coinciding with the UK release of The Half-Blood Prince. Radio 1 executives will presumably (again) seek solace in the fact that the Radio Centre's complaint was only partially upheld, but there's a pained note in the BBC Trust's full report. Why, given previous form, didn't the producers run this one past the BBC's own editorial policy team, who might have given them some useful advice about prominence and its meaning.

Olympic odds and ends

The Telegraph says the seats have been ordered for the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, and they are all either black or white. Somehow, they'll be arranged to pick out the London logo on opposite sides of the arena. But let's hope we don't see much of them - let's hope the best pictures are taken when it's full of people.

I've also noted a lack of journalistic investigation into one burning question. Who was inside the Wenlock and Mandeville suits at the launch in London ? The Teletubby operators made several news stories, and there used to be some interest as to who was inside the Womble suits when they were on Top of the Pops. (Andy Price, formerly a reporter for You and Yours, was a "reserve").

Wenlock looked rather poorly padded at St Paul's School in Whitechapel. It can't have been Roger Mosey...