BBC local radio doesn’t even have much of an impact on commercial radio…
Ahead of Lord Patten’s keynote address at the Oxford Media Convention today, Raymond Snoddy says to try and cut £15 million off the [BBC local radio] budget and get rid of 280 people is simply unsustainable as a piece of politics…
In ancient times newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell had a very particular negotiating style. Just as a deal was about to be signed Maxwell would demand an extra 15% off. Take it or leave it.
It probably worked at the beginning but then he was rumbled. Everyone added 20% to the price to counter the “Maxwell effect”. Now it feels as if a variant of that manoeuvre has been going on at the BBC over local radio.
Did management overload cuts on one of the Corporation’s less privileged outposts in the sure and certain knowledge that it was bound to be overturned? Can you even imagine the dozens of local MP’s in the footprint of those 40 stations being prepared to put up with such a thing?
Public service credentials
There was always the obvious argument to be deployed that if there were a strict test of public service credentials then BBC local and regional radio would come very high up the list. In fact those credentials were even strengthened this week when GMG Radio announced that about one third of its 39 news journalists would be cut.
Doesn’t your heart sink to hear management talking about providing an “appropriate” level of news coverage? Couldn’t they just be honest enough to say the numbers don’t add up and we are forced to reduce the number of journalists we employ and the service on offer?
BBC local radio doesn’t even have much of an impact on the commercial radio market. Its audience is older and it provides a very different schedule. To try and cut £15 million off the budget and get rid of 280 people is simply unsustainable as a piece of politics. And you can’t argue that, in many cases, getting rid of 10 people out of a total staff of 40 won’t affect programme standards.
This dance will last a long time.
As the BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten is expected to say at the Oxford Media convention this afternoon, no final decisions have been taken. Patten wants the BBC management to look again at the impact of the cuts on local radio, which has a regular reach of 7.5 million – and on the BBC’s regional current affairs programme Inside Out (which is facing cuts of 40%) .
But you can safely predict the outcome once due protocols have been observed. The BBC Trust could not possibly rubber-stamp management proposals – but this is the relatively inexpensive place where an important difference could be made.
Commercial radio
The controversy provides good publicity for radio in general, which sometimes suffers from an enforced invisibility. Not everyone knows how well commercial radio performed in 2011 and that it could do even better this year.
The “disastrous” decision to axe the Central Office of Information turned out to be anything but the expected crisis for commercial radio. The reason why is simple enough when you think about it. The COI got a very good deal, which makes the closure decision look increasingly like one of those short-term, political knee-jerk reactions that looked financially astute for about three weeks.
As a result commercial radio has cleaned up. Fewer ad slots produced smaller inventories and higher yields. Then when the individual government departments start advertising again it will be a case of trebles all round.
The next BBC director general
Back to the BBC Trust again. What can we make of the decision to bring in early stage head-hunters to begin the job of finding the next director general of the BBC even though there is no “imminent” vacancy.
It seems like a strange thing to do… and risks creating a lame duck director general needlessly early. Sometimes what is merely prudent can have unexpected consequences.
It will certainly fuel the persistent speculation that Thompson, who is on a rolling contract, plans to depart with a bow after the “triumph” of the London Olympics.
At the moment the head-hunters are only searching for the sort of person the BBC should be looking for but even so it will inevitably fire the starting gun for a frenzied race – although it could be more of a marathon than a sprint.
The key determinant of this particular contest will be the much reduced salary on offer to the applicants – say £500,000 or so instead of the current £670,000, before all the bells and whistles get added on. That will cut out all the mercenaries.
It was always a palpable nonsense that you had to pay above the odds, or at least the full commercial market rate, to attract the best candidate as director-general of the BBC. As Lord Patten says, the best candidate will walk over broken glass to get to such a job and the salary will only be a minor part of the motivation.
Helen Boaden?
At the moment the field is very open. After bringing in Salford on time and on the official budget Peter Salmon will fancy his chances – as will George Entwhistle, the head of BBC Vision, though the contest could come a little early for him. It might come a little late for Michael Jackson, former chief executive of Channel 4.
A wise punter might speculate that the moment has arrived for the appointment of the first woman director-general of the BBC, with at least five to choose from in the line-up – Dawn Airey, Jana Bennett, Helen Boaden, Jay Hunt and Jane Root.
Hunt cannot be ruled out but given the complexity of the task following the flat licence fee the odds should probably favour an internal candidate this time. Which means that head of News Helen Boaden could come up on the rails. Her experience is limited to news and current affairs in TV and radio but the same limitations applied to Thompson and one of the key tasks will be the integration of BBC News and the World Service.
Above all else the job should not go to anyone likely to get carried away with the wonders of technology given the viewing figures for 2011 released by Thinkbox this week. Average television viewing matched last year’s record figure of just over four hours a day and that looks unlikely to change much in the short term, whoever becomes the next director-general of the BBC.