Post by Teddy Bear on Jan 14, 2011 11:37:23 GMT
BBC executives justify the high salaries they rake out of the licence fee with the excuse that it matches what they would be earning in the private sector, even though there is no evidence of that being the case, and in most cases there are no similar positions within the private sector, nor could it afford such largely ridiculous titles.
But since the licence fee paying public has to put out so much for these people, the least we could expect is that they were actually skilled and talented in the areas they are supposed to be 'experts' in. The only skill they show is in building an increasingly more corrupt organisation with ridiculous roles invented to maintain their propaganda machine, like 'Head of Diversity' as one example.
An additional part of this machine means spending lots of money on research and reviews which title sounds good to the public FORCED to pay for it, but actually means nothing in real translation to what one would hope would be achieved by it. Such a review was the one concerning 'strategy' in the wake of the last agreed deal on the licence fee payment the BBC could expect for the period ahead.
So even ignoring the fact that the head of BBC Trust, Michael Lyons, seemed not to understand the maths involved in the licence fee deal (The day the BBC Trust got its figures wrong), after spending all this money on this strategy review and getting the results, the director general Mark Thompson clearly felt it didn't give him what he wanted to hear, so he's put it back to his staff to construct it the way he really wants it.
After scrutinising the output of the BBC for these last years I can predict what 'strategy' Thompson wants, more power into areas of propaganda, with less concern about quality. The latter they will justify as a result of the decrease in licence fee they wanted, the former to ensure their own power and control.
Nine horsemen of Mark Thompson's BBC apocalypse
By Neil Midgley Broadcasting and media Last updated: January 13th, 2011
Lord Reith thought, perhaps naively, that it was enough for the BBC to educate, inform and entertain.
The current BBC charter, by contrast, sets out six public purposes for the corporation. In case that wasn’t enough, current director-general Mark Thompson has put forward five new editorial priorities for the BBC, in his strategy document Putting Quality First. The BBC Trust, led by chairman Sir Michael Lyons, must have felt a bit left out, because in their response to that strategy, they found it necessary to write down four “priority areas” on which the BBC must concentrate.
By this point, you may be expecting three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. But no.
Mr Thompson has today once again thrown the maths wide open in a presentation to staff which – if I may continue the laboured festive metaphor – very much had the flavour of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.
As a result of the six-year licence fee freeze that Mr Thompson agreed with the Government in October, he wants to deliver cuts to existing budgets of somewhere in the region of 20 per cent. In an unlikely twist, he said today that he wants the staff themselves effectively to suggest where the axe will fall – and therefore which hundreds of them will get fired. And Mr Thompson did it by setting no fewer than nine new questions, which must, he says, be answered in order for the BBC to plan its future.
(Innocents outside the BBC might have thought that was the purpose of last year’s interminable and very expensive strategy review, but apparently not.)
What’s more, Mr Thompson has set up a “workstream” for each question to be answered over the next six months. Each workstream will be led by a hand-picked BBC executive. They’ll be accepting email suggestions from staff, as well as responding to “town hall meetings” for BBC employees, open meetings for each workstream, radio phone-ins, a dedicated intranet site, a social media website and an all-staff event. (No stinting, it seems, on the budget for the process for deciding the budget.)
Here’s each question, along with the executive who’ll be answering it.
These poor henchmen have, by the way, already been dubbed ‘the nine horsemen of Mark Thompson’s apocalypse’ by BBC staffers. Which doesn’t quite fit with my Christmas-numbers riff, but it did make me chortle.
But since the licence fee paying public has to put out so much for these people, the least we could expect is that they were actually skilled and talented in the areas they are supposed to be 'experts' in. The only skill they show is in building an increasingly more corrupt organisation with ridiculous roles invented to maintain their propaganda machine, like 'Head of Diversity' as one example.
An additional part of this machine means spending lots of money on research and reviews which title sounds good to the public FORCED to pay for it, but actually means nothing in real translation to what one would hope would be achieved by it. Such a review was the one concerning 'strategy' in the wake of the last agreed deal on the licence fee payment the BBC could expect for the period ahead.
So even ignoring the fact that the head of BBC Trust, Michael Lyons, seemed not to understand the maths involved in the licence fee deal (The day the BBC Trust got its figures wrong), after spending all this money on this strategy review and getting the results, the director general Mark Thompson clearly felt it didn't give him what he wanted to hear, so he's put it back to his staff to construct it the way he really wants it.
After scrutinising the output of the BBC for these last years I can predict what 'strategy' Thompson wants, more power into areas of propaganda, with less concern about quality. The latter they will justify as a result of the decrease in licence fee they wanted, the former to ensure their own power and control.
Nine horsemen of Mark Thompson's BBC apocalypse
By Neil Midgley Broadcasting and media Last updated: January 13th, 2011
Lord Reith thought, perhaps naively, that it was enough for the BBC to educate, inform and entertain.
The current BBC charter, by contrast, sets out six public purposes for the corporation. In case that wasn’t enough, current director-general Mark Thompson has put forward five new editorial priorities for the BBC, in his strategy document Putting Quality First. The BBC Trust, led by chairman Sir Michael Lyons, must have felt a bit left out, because in their response to that strategy, they found it necessary to write down four “priority areas” on which the BBC must concentrate.
By this point, you may be expecting three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. But no.
Mr Thompson has today once again thrown the maths wide open in a presentation to staff which – if I may continue the laboured festive metaphor – very much had the flavour of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.
As a result of the six-year licence fee freeze that Mr Thompson agreed with the Government in October, he wants to deliver cuts to existing budgets of somewhere in the region of 20 per cent. In an unlikely twist, he said today that he wants the staff themselves effectively to suggest where the axe will fall – and therefore which hundreds of them will get fired. And Mr Thompson did it by setting no fewer than nine new questions, which must, he says, be answered in order for the BBC to plan its future.
(Innocents outside the BBC might have thought that was the purpose of last year’s interminable and very expensive strategy review, but apparently not.)
What’s more, Mr Thompson has set up a “workstream” for each question to be answered over the next six months. Each workstream will be led by a hand-picked BBC executive. They’ll be accepting email suggestions from staff, as well as responding to “town hall meetings” for BBC employees, open meetings for each workstream, radio phone-ins, a dedicated intranet site, a social media website and an all-staff event. (No stinting, it seems, on the budget for the process for deciding the budget.)
Here’s each question, along with the executive who’ll be answering it.
1. What will audiences want from the BBC in a converged, fully digital world?
Rhodri Talfan Davies, head of strategy and communications at BBC Cymru Wales.
2. What should ‘doing fewer things better’ mean in Journalism?
Bob Shennan, controller of Radio 2.
3. What should ‘doing fewer things better’ mean in Television?
Craig Oliver, controller of English, BBC global news.
4. What should ‘doing fewer things better’ mean in Radio?
Ceri Thomas, editor of the Today programme.
5. How can we become a simpler organisation, easier to work and partner with?
Phil Fearnley, general manager, news and knowledge.
6. We want to attract, retain and inspire brilliant people at the BBC, what should they expect from the BBC and what should it expect from them?
Cheryl Taylor, controller, comedy commissioning.
7. How can we continue to spread creative opportunity and investment across the UK but eliminate duplication and wheel-spin?
Luke Bradley Jones, managing director, bbc.com.
8. What should the next chapter be in the productivity story at the BBC?
Adrian Van Klaveren, controller, Radio 5 Live.
9. How can we forge a clearer, more productive relationship between our public service and commercial operations?
Kim Shillinglaw, commissioning editor, science and natural history.
These poor henchmen have, by the way, already been dubbed ‘the nine horsemen of Mark Thompson’s apocalypse’ by BBC staffers. Which doesn’t quite fit with my Christmas-numbers riff, but it did make me chortle.