Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 8, 2012 22:52:47 GMT
My thoughts on this subject pretty much are reflected by those of this MP
Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons media select committee, said: ‘I’m not a fan of regional quotas. Licence payers want the best programmes made at the best price by the best production teams.
‘If the best people are in Salford anyway, that’s fine. But if these contracts are awarded for politically correct reasons and simply mean people working in London have to travel long distances to do work they were previously doing in London, that’s ridiculous. It’s patronising, tokenistic and expensive.’
Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons media select committee, said: ‘I’m not a fan of regional quotas. Licence payers want the best programmes made at the best price by the best production teams.
‘If the best people are in Salford anyway, that’s fine. But if these contracts are awarded for politically correct reasons and simply mean people working in London have to travel long distances to do work they were previously doing in London, that’s ridiculous. It’s patronising, tokenistic and expensive.’
BBC's hotel bill rockets to £2MILLION after move North to MediaCity complex
By Richard Kay
The BBC’s hotel bill has rocketed from £750,000 to £2million in a year as more staff and guests who live in other parts of the country work from its new media centres in the North West.
Figures disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act show the Corporation’s hotel bill in Salford increased by 17 times to almost 1million after several departments moved out of London to the MediaCity complex.
In the financial year 2010/11 the BBC spent £54,653 on hotel bills in Salford.
But during the following financial year, which ended in April, this figure had jumped to £924,607 after BBC Sport, Radio 5 Live and the BBC children’s department moved there.
Comparable figures for nearby Manchester also increased, from £690,237 to just over £1m.
The BBC’s regionalisation policy is estimated to have cost £1.5billion in construction and relocation costs.
It decrees that 50 per cent of programmes must be made outside London by 2016 at studios in Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast, Salford and Glasgow.
It has not been universally popular. BBC Breakfast presenters Sian Williams and Chris Hollins decided to leave the news show rather than move to Salford.
Critics believe the policy often means staff and guests are simply transported from London to another part of Britain.
Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons media select committee, said: ‘I’m not a fan of regional quotas. Licence payers want the best programmes made at the best price by the best production teams.
‘If the best people are in Salford anyway, that’s fine. But if these contracts are awarded for politically correct reasons and simply mean people working in London have to travel long distances to do work they were previously doing in London, that’s ridiculous. It’s patronising, tokenistic and expensive.’
In the FoI response relating to the hotel bills, Angela Sargeant, head of expenses management at the BBC, said: ‘Staff are regularly required to work from different BBC offices around the UK the period which this response relates to also covers the time when the BBC’s new offices in Salford were being developed into a fully operational broadcasting base.’
By Richard Kay
The BBC’s hotel bill has rocketed from £750,000 to £2million in a year as more staff and guests who live in other parts of the country work from its new media centres in the North West.
Figures disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act show the Corporation’s hotel bill in Salford increased by 17 times to almost 1million after several departments moved out of London to the MediaCity complex.
In the financial year 2010/11 the BBC spent £54,653 on hotel bills in Salford.
But during the following financial year, which ended in April, this figure had jumped to £924,607 after BBC Sport, Radio 5 Live and the BBC children’s department moved there.
Comparable figures for nearby Manchester also increased, from £690,237 to just over £1m.
The BBC’s regionalisation policy is estimated to have cost £1.5billion in construction and relocation costs.
It decrees that 50 per cent of programmes must be made outside London by 2016 at studios in Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast, Salford and Glasgow.
It has not been universally popular. BBC Breakfast presenters Sian Williams and Chris Hollins decided to leave the news show rather than move to Salford.
Critics believe the policy often means staff and guests are simply transported from London to another part of Britain.
Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons media select committee, said: ‘I’m not a fan of regional quotas. Licence payers want the best programmes made at the best price by the best production teams.
‘If the best people are in Salford anyway, that’s fine. But if these contracts are awarded for politically correct reasons and simply mean people working in London have to travel long distances to do work they were previously doing in London, that’s ridiculous. It’s patronising, tokenistic and expensive.’
In the FoI response relating to the hotel bills, Angela Sargeant, head of expenses management at the BBC, said: ‘Staff are regularly required to work from different BBC offices around the UK the period which this response relates to also covers the time when the BBC’s new offices in Salford were being developed into a fully operational broadcasting base.’