Coe opts out

The "shoo-in" has dropped out. Lord Coe broke his decision not to proceed to interview for the job of BBC Trust Chairman to the Mail's sports diarist Charlie Sale, saying ‘I did allow my name to go forward to give myself time to properly analyse whether I had enough time to do the job to the best of my abilities.

‘On reflection, I haven’t the capacity and I now want to concentrate on my current commitments and the IAAF election. As everyone knows, athletics is in my DNA.’

The news comes a day after The Times (paywall) suggested that, if appointed, Coe's commitments would be questioned pretty firmly by the usually-angry-about-something MPs of the Culture and Media Select Committee.

Curried ?

Rigorous Robert Peston might like to re-consider his contribution to the selection of the next BBC Chairman, if only for the use of "virtual shoo-in" in respect of Lord Coe.

Oxford Dictionaries online offer this definition: A person or thing that is certain to succeed, especially someone who is certain to win a competition - and this, for the term's origins: 1930s: from the earlier use of the term denoting the winner of a rigged horse race.

The Spectator notes that earlier this week Pesto was on tour in India with Chancellor George Osborne. In his blog, the BBC Economics editors writes "Of course his [Lord Coe's]appointment is not 100%, because there is a formal and slightly cumbersome appointments process."

Could the really cumbersome bit be the Nolan Principles about transparency, accountability and openness in public life ? If Lord Coe is such an obvious shoo-in, why does a senior government source need to boost his claim to any hack, especially one with business acumen ?  Does nobody remember the hoo-ha over John Birt Productions Ltd ?  Will the BBC really write a cheque to the Chime Group for Lord Coe's services ? Who's playing who here ?

Speak up

BBC DG Lord Hall may prefer to support his 300-odd Glastonbury troops from home, but he wasn't far away yesterday. He popped in to the National Trust's Barrington Court, some 25 miles south of Worthy Farm, to watch shooting of Wolf Hall.

The six-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novel stars Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. The visit was gushingly welcomed by director Peter Kosminsky, but he may have tweeted before being issued with a set of anti-mumbling guidelines....

Thirty five years making television programmes and such a thing has never happened before. Leadership. #wolfhall
— Peter Kosminsky (@kosmoSFL) June 27, 2014

Three wise people

Once again, an amusing panel has been constructed to whittle down candidates to be the next Chairman of the BBC Trust.

Last time, when we got Lord Patten, it was cross-bencher Lord Browne, formerly of BP; Stewart Purvis, formerly of ITN; and DCMS Permanent Secretary Jonathan Stephens who conducted the preliminary interviews, with the help of a unnamed independent assessor.

This time, (source: The Mail) the cross-bencher is Lord Kakkar, Professor of Surgery at UCL, and a specialist in work on deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms; the broadcasting eminence is Carolyn Fairbairn, formerly Director of Strategy at both the BBC and ITV; and then, shock horror, Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. No room, apparently, for new-ish DCMS Permanent Secretary Sue Owen.

The Heywood name was last mentioned in connection with the BBC when Lord Hall invited a McKinsey team, lead by Mrs Suzanne Heyood, to examine ways of simplifying Auntie's internal structures. The outcome of this £600k investment was supposed to be "The Bonfire of the Boards", with almost half of these pompous groupings to be closed down. Any suggestion that they nearly all continue, but are now called "team meetings" would be mischievous.

Pan-BBC breakthrough

April 2014 was meant to have seen The Bonfire of The Boards at the BBC, halving the number of "pan-BBC" groups, and driving more responsibility to individuals.

So far, I've only spotted one that's gone - a light spluttering of kindling, rather than an inferno.

So, farewell BBC Management Board, which included all the BBC Executive, plus Nations Controllers, Editorial Policy's David Jordan, Marketing's Philip Almond, Future Media's Ralph Rivera, King of the North Peter Salmon and Creative Director Alan Yentob.

Hello, phoenix-like, courtesy of them big brains at McKinsey, the Executive Team, which includes all the BBC Executive, plus Nations Controllers, Editorial Policy's David Jordan (etc, etc, etc).

Apparently, the new Executive Team looks at pan-BBC issues and ensures that all divisions are involved in delivering the BBC’s objectives. Whereas the old Management Board was responsible for managing pan-BBC issues delegated to it from the Executive Board and ensuring that the organisation met its pan-BBC objectives.  Got that ?

Going down

Further to Media Monkey's revelation that BBC News boss James Harding is moving his office to the ground floor of Broadcasting House, there is consternation amongst the troops, architects and middle management.

First the troops - no news yet on where the displaced will be resettled; indeed Media Monkey's item came out of the blue for some involved in the dogged, relentless process known as Home Newsgathering Planning.

Newsroom before people
made it untidy

The architects are confronted with the problems of building office space in a double-height open plan area. Will it be an open glass box ? A box with a lid on ?  A pretend lift shaft (see red box, left) ? I'll let you know - or you can take a look yourself with a stroll along Hallam Street.

This wish to be in the middle of things was last expressed by Mark Byford, until wiser heads prevailed. Tony Hall, when he was Director of News at Television Centre, was quite happy with a suite of offices constructed out of pre-fabricated metal panels stuck on a third floor roof. It looked like a punishment block from Bridge on the River Kwai from the outside, but inside, the space for Tone and his management team was generous, with sylvan views of Hammersmith Park. Its formal internal postal address was The Periphery.

So why, on a day when Tony tells the world there are more difficult cuts to come, should middle management be uncomfortable about Harding the Hack's move ?  Well, it puts him closer to the journalists than a whole layer of people whose principal daily function is to communicate the Great Man's thinking to the workers and then return to upper floors.  And, inside the BBC, it can often go wrong when the workers talk straight to the bosses. I offer you Caroline Hawley tipping Mark Thompson off about events at Newsnight.

• It is possible for a big boss to live on a newsroom floor without people bothering too much. In the Telegraph's vast Victoria hangar of multiplatform, Jason "Chauncey Gardiner" Seiken operates from a glass box at the edge, and has apparently yet to pick up the courage to take the direct route through the serried ranks of toilers on his way in and out.  

Sitting

The end of an interesting week for former BBC DG Mark Thompson. After saying sorry for giving the impression the Digital Media Initiative was unstoppable ('cos that's what he thought) to MPs, he headed back to the New York Times to report on his first set of annual figures.

They aren't bad - revenue from digital only subscriptions is up 36%, to $149m. There are signs the steady decline in income from print advertising is slowing down. Money, including that made from the sale of the Boston Globe, is being invested in new money-making ideas, like "native" advertising, with online content created by the advertising team and sponsoring companies.

The Daily Mail claims that Thommo, unlike George Entwistle, will have a portrait to mark his tenure as DG. and says the BBC is prepared to stump up £20,000 (£5k up from that spent on Messrs Dyke and Birt). (3.30pm update from a BBC spokesman:  "We haven't commissioned anything and there is no immediate rush to do so.") Let's hope he picks a British artist, so as not to annoy the Mail further; Thommo and Mrs Thommo are still listed as supporting The Art Room charity in Oxford.

As for the pose, this may be how many will remember him, whether it's fair or not.

The Yentob Diaries

The BBC has published extracts from Alan Yentob's appointments diary, in response to a Freedom of Information Act enquiry. I've been reading them so you don't have to.

We start in October 2012 - George Entwistle is DG, so Alan is relegated to the regular "Wider Management Group Conference Calls" as his connection to the top.  On October 8 Alan and X are Tony Hall's guests at the opening of the Royal Opera House 2012/3 season.

The day of George's resignation - 10th November - is spookily blank. Was Alan across it ? The day before there is an enigmatic "Call HBO", an American network to which Alan is an occasional contributor. The next week, there's the first of series of catch-up meetings with Roger Mosey - though none noted with acting DG Tim Davie. On November 22 Tony Hall is announced as the next DG; Alan has three and half hours set aside for a meeting with Tony Hall the following week.  In the first week of December, Tim Davie, Tony Hall and Alan get an hour together.

The New Year, at least as far as pages released goes, starts on January 14 - and there's another hour with Tone.  By February, there's a new group forming - Alan, Tim Davie, Lucy Adams, Tony Hall, Jessica Cecil, one Greg Nugent, (former Olympics PR who was just starting a new boutique operation with Godric Smith) and James Purnell - who was to be unveiled as a Hall signing to the public the next day. Allan also gets an hour with BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten.

Tony Hall formally arrives in post 2nd April, and that afternoon there's a planning meeting, with Godric and Julian Payne. (S/N stands for "Secretary's Note", whited out)

Alan's diary soon becomes peppered with Senior Management Team meetings and a Daily Editorial conference call at 0920. There are routines with Danny Cohen, Bob Shennan and William Gresswell (Controller of Strategy for Television) - two days set aside for Glasto, and we progress nicely to the First Night of the Proms with Tony Hall.

All the way through there are meetings about "The Space", the BBC's online venture in partnership with Arts Council England; regular sessions with Tanya (one presumes the Imagine producer, Tanya Hudson), and a whole series of appointments to sort out Alan's office at Broadcasting House.

Some names you might expect are there - Amanda Nevill of the BFI, literary agent Ed Victor, ex BBC chum Jana Bennett, architect Zaha Hadid - others we can only guess at; Annie T, Luke, Richard, Geoff, 'MJ arrives from NYC'. There's rather too much time spent on an article about David Bowie for the Daily Mail.

And each week sees two or three first night/reception opportunities. As you'd expect for a man at the heart of arts and culture, not just in the UK, but around the world.

Master and Commander

Less than a week to go before BBC News boss James Harding gives the first W.T.Stead Memorial Lecture at the British Library. For £8 (£6 to me, cos I'm over 60)... James Harding surveys journalism today. We now have more ways than ever before to access the news, but how does this affect the way that news is produced, communicated and consumed? With experience in both print and broadcast journalism, Harding reflects upon the place of news in a changing media landscape. 

No idea if he's taking questions. There are some. James' declared management board costs the best part of £2m a year in salary packages - without adding the wages of Business Managers, Special Assistants and PAs. At least two salaries are undeclared, apparently because they're paid for by Global News. And salaries of newer arrivals, like Keith Blackmore, as Managing Editor, and Jonathan Munro, as Newsgathering boss, are not included. Staff will be interested in the direction of travel, as I believe they say...

A luta continua

Worried about Alan ?  Fear not, he'll be back. The BBC's Creative Director, inexplicably hounded by the Guardian's Hugh Muir and Media Monkey over the festive break, has been spotted in Cape Town. Perhaps redressing his contribution to the Mandela story, or perhaps grumpy that he was one few BBC staff not flown to South Africa for the funeral.

His low holiday profile may be the result of paparazzi concentrating on Cheryl Cole. On his return, his rival may be closer at hand. Lord Hall has determined to find a new arts guru, and may well already have lighted upon the talents of Ruth Mackenzie, who helped him deliver the Cultural Olympics; who is already interim director of BBC/Arts Council collaboration The Space; and who is in and out of Broadcasting House like a yo-yo consulting on Charter renewal and more.

Flush

Greg Dyke selflessly offers his opinion to The Guardian - "The BBC has a problem in the sense it's got a busted flush as chairman. I am surprised [Patten] is still there. It would probably help if he wasn't."

In the last full year of Greg's tenure as DG (2002/3), Greg was on a salary of £368k plus a bonus of £88k. His total package was £469k - equivalent to £646k in 2012. In addition, the BBC contributed £59,000 to his money purchase pension scheme. Alan Yentob was on a package of £321k (which including a miserly £20k for on screen presentation), and Mark Byford on £306k. Jana Bennett was on £444k, and the BBC paid £136k towards her costs of moving back from the States. There were 18 members of the Executive, with their packages totalling £5.3m.

Meeting requests not yet deleted

There were no helpful diagrams in yesterday's review of governance at the BBC. Lord Hall has promised to close down the work of 36 out of 56 pan-BBC boards, but the only one named so far is the DG's Finance Committee. Apparently any meaningful decisions currently taken by the 36 unnecessary meetings will be re-distributed to individuals - again, names and job titles would be useful. The Trust, for its part, said it would have fewer formal regular meetings with Executive members, accepting more information by quarterly reports, but it hasn't said which sub-committees are to close.

It's clearly a document that you can read anyway you like. Tony Hall's view? "From now on, the Executive Board will be the key decision-makers, and will ensure that Worldwide and the public service work together properly." Lord Patten? "The trust will set short, medium and long term objectives and publicly hold the executive to them".  How short is short, and when do short-term objectives morph into micro-management ?

For all the avowed love of transparency at the Trust, and published, but as yet un-re-written protocols (come ON, Kroll), there's no organogram on its site, though there is a list of eight sub-committees. The best diagram I can find was submitted to the Lords Communications Committee in 2011. We need to see more crossing out.

Gaviscon

I shall return in more detail to the BBC's review of governance after I've been to the pub; it is pretty indigestible, and clearly has been written by several hands. I highlight one chilling section, from someone who clearly gets angry, about "changing the culture" beyond the new rule book ....

It will require a willingness to share information openly from the Executive to the Trust without any implication that this cuts across the formal responsibilities of each side, or that it will be taken as an invitation for direct involvement in the matter at hand. 

It will also require the Executive to be more open to frank discussion and comment about issues the BBC has faced and understand that the Trust, in reviewing such matters, may take a different view. In return, the Trust will ensure it steps away from involvement in day to day management of issues once it is satisfied that an appropriate framework has been set. Provided the Executive works within that framework it will be left to deliver the work without additional input from the Trust.

So the Kroll Kode of Konduct for the Trust is replaced with an unworkable demand on the Executive: Tell us everything, and we'll decide if and when we interfere.

Meanwhile we note that Sir Howard Stringer (Merton College, Oxford), rejected previously as DG in 1999, and tapped up unsuccessfully as Chairman when Patten got the gig, is joining as a non-executive on the Executive. Earlier this month he got his foot in the door helping to sort out James Harding and a licence-fee funded World Service. Sir Howard, 71, seems to be collecting grandee roles in his retirement - is there a conflict of interest here already ?

I'll allow myself one "told yer". There will be a job as Secretary on the Executive.

Christmas humbug, anyone ?

In a cascade of pre-Christmas announcements, the BBC is also expected to reveal this week the outcome of its review of governance. A review is always a good shock-absorber - this one came after ultimate responsibility for huge pay-offs was tossed from hand to hand like a live nuclear hot potato by the Trust and Executive, past and present, in front of a rightly-astonished Public Accounts Committee.

But is the Harrold/Payne solution a bodge or a breakthrough ? (Phil Harrold, Head of Governance at the Trust, former senior advisor to the Victoria State Government, Australia; Julian Payne, cheery but deposed Head of Communications, batting for the Executive).

The issue has been discussed officially at no less than five Trust meetings, with Fiona Reynolds, lead non-exec for the Exec, missing the first two, and some non-execs feeling a little left outside the process. In September, Trust minutes promised "visible and significant reforms in the way that the Trust and Executive Board operated so that the BBC could demonstrate that it is well run and appropriately governed".

Well, the words may soon be visible, but their meaning could well be a matter of continuing opacity. Expect incompatible phrase-making along the lines of "The Trust will stand back more from detailed operational management, but will continue to exercise appropriate and rigorous scrutiny when necessary", "The Trust will let the Executive manage the delivery of its objectives, but continue to hold them to account on the modalities where they're clearly at odds with public service values", and other similar blah.

Big man

There will be those in Broadcasting House who might raise eyebrows at this interview given by cuddly Mark Lawson to the York University student paper The Yorker. Particularly this bit.

"Having a daughter and virtually all female producers, I think the big challenge for feminism now is that you can change ideology, as we have, but it’s much harder to change biology. Fathering a child and giving birth to a child are different things in terms of the physical and emotional impact. And perhaps that shouldn’t be the case, but it still is. I’ve seen a number of very brilliant women who naturally should go onto be Director General of the BBC, but I’ve seen this crisis played out when they have children and say ‘well do I still want this?’, and that doesn’t happen with men. It is very complicated."

Consiglieri

Just over a week left for applications to be a Non-Executive Director of the BBC - though the BBC does say it's not sure if the role will change or even exist in its current form, as Julian Payne conducts his review of the remains of BBC governance. It's possible he'll discover informed decision-making has actually disappeared down a drain somewhere along Great Portland Street.

The McKinsey BBC team, also with their fingers in the governance pie, are likely to recommend some form of beefed-up core unit - not unlike the old days, when the BBC had a Secretary (company-style) who straddled the relationship between the Executive and the Governors. The Secretary's team made sure proposals and papers were in good shape for discussion and/or approval  - rather than typed out that morning by the DG. Some common support unit, serving both the Executive and The Trust, would also represent a savings opportunity - The Trust costs £12m a year.

The BBC careers website has an entertaining feature which reveals other jobs applicants for the Non-Exec roles are trying for. Lord Hall will be pleased to know he can short-list from people who also believe they would make excellent Talent Managers, Comedy, and Trainee Research Technologists.../

Fair selection

There'll be a vacant chair soon in Lord Hall's inner sanctum, c/o The Crystal Maze, Broadcasting House, BBC W1.

Jessica Cecil is moving from her post as "Chief of Staff/Head of the DG's Office" to the comforting bosom of Anne Bulford's Finance and Operations Division. She can't have expected to serve quite so many DG's when she first signed up, but then Jimmy Savile speeded up things - and she worked for Thommo, Entwistle, Davie (acting) and Hall. Previous work on the collapse of the Mayan Civilisation may have proved good grounding, as perhaps did her other job as a non-exec with the London Ambulance Service.

(Dear diary eds, can I have a back link for this one.... ?)

Will the job be advertised?  Were the posts of Technology Editor, Newsnight, and Policy Editor, Newsnight advertised? As ever, there are more questions than answers...

Width

Just over 24 hours to go, and it looks like Tony Hall's speech on the future of the BBC will have to be renamed.

"Where next ?" has become "Whatever next ?" as a relentless cascade of announcements and initiatives tumble from the pen of Godric and the PR team.

Since Friday, we've got 20% increased spending on tv arts programming; a relaunch of the online culture initiative, The Space; a video channel for Radio 1 on the iPlayer (perhaps not unrelated to this morning's launch of Capital Xtra); a personalised BBC iPlayer app; an online potpourri of the speech programming, to be called Open Minds; Elmo and the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street to appear on CBeebies next year; a trawl for women presenter talent for local radio; and Mishal Husain making her debut on Today, featuring her Malala Yousafzai interview (a collaboration with Panorama). Surely some of all that should produce column inches ?

There's always a dark side. Steve Hewlett worries about funding models, with this clear shift towards individual (measurable) consumption from broadcast. The Mail on Sunday chose to highlight details of the NUJ dossier on bullying (now nine months old), and former BBC trusty Jennifer Saunders has gone a little off message in Glamour magazine....

"They went corporate instead of being what they should be which is a national resource which trains people and curates the best programmes, encourages talent and provides great news. They just became an executive run place for idiots."

"It's just so weird that they could put people off coming into the building the way they do now. How is Alan Yentob still allowed in the building? There are questions that need to be answered!" 

"I remember when it was fun to be there and everybody in the building looked like they really knew something and were good at something. Now they have things like massive workshops on decision making and you think: 'If you're a head of department at the BBC and you don't know how to make a decision, why are you in that job? That's the only thing that you have to do!"

Leader's speech

A big strategy speech by a BBC DG is like a set piece from a party leader at a political conference. You apply your oratorical skills to make the rather elusive big-vision-stuff sparkle, and your team are required to provide the zingers, the lollipops of delight, the headline-catching twerks that'll demonstrate you're really in touch.

So, ahead of next Tuesday's speech by Tony Hall, there's a general call round all departments for good gags and material that'll probably run until Monday evening. The James Purnell vision stuff will have already been road-tested, but will be difficult to make shiny. How do you square the circle of requiring an-ever-more-agile BBC, working in a world of increasingly-disruptive technology changes, with a written plan for the next ten years? Especially when Lord Patten has made it pretty clear that he won't back a call for a big licence fee increase ?

The staff will be playing buzz-word bingo. They've heard "creativity", "partnership", "passion", "collaboration" and "great content" too often, for too long, and want action, not workshops; new programmes, not repeats; good job prospects, not "creative labels". They'll be more interested to hear about headcount forecasts, and how many are destined for exile from Oz to the work-camps of Glasgow, Salford and Birmingham. They'll want to know that, as "Senior Management" roles are cut, there are real changes in they way they are being managed, and not just a huge growth in the management jobs at Band 11, just below the SM grade.  They've been promised a ringside seat at the "Bonfire of the Boards", which hasn't yet happened.

When you're really hungry, the present of a nicely-cooked meal is more appreciated than a recipe book. Or something like that.

Crumbs

The Broadcasting House mice are scratching at the inner glazed ring of the DG's Crystal Maze - Taste The Difference cake crumbs so near, yet so far - as the festivities to mark the departure of Roger Mosey, the BBC's first Editorial Director, leave Tony Hall with yet another conundrum.

Roger has signed off after 33 years pensionable service - four months of them in this new role - and heads to the Master's Lodge at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His final salary package was £277,800. The job surely HAS to be seen as strategic, not just tactical. But finding someone else with the news and BBC nous to fill the role will be tricky.

James Harding, Helen Boaden and Danny Cohen need to respect the decisions of whoever comes in - yet not feel threatened by the new arrival. It's probably a little too risky for someone just to emerge as "the chosen one", with the PAC watching Lord Hall's appointment record; yet it would be odd to fill it by open board.

• While we're on about "boards", a BBC word used to mean both "interview panel" and "pompous overblown meeting of supernumerary managers pretending they're part of an approval and control process", expect the Hall axe to be wielded over proliferation of the latter in coming weeks - probably to distract staff from other bad news over which Tony has less control.