Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 29, 2015 20:15:54 GMT
Though Janet Street Porter is not my 'cup of tea' she does hit the nail on the head with what she has to say now about the BBC. Makes me wonder what brought this on.
Note the BBC response:
A spokeswoman for the BBC told MailOnline: 'Janet has never been shy about offering an opinion but, while we appreciate there’s always more we can do, it’s a shame she doesn’t acknowledge the progress we have made in reflecting modern Britain.'
'Reflecting modern Britain'
If only!
Note the BBC response:
A spokeswoman for the BBC told MailOnline: 'Janet has never been shy about offering an opinion but, while we appreciate there’s always more we can do, it’s a shame she doesn’t acknowledge the progress we have made in reflecting modern Britain.'
'Reflecting modern Britain'
If only!
BBC is a ‘cosy middle-class’ club stuffed with too many overpaid bosses with ‘meaningless’ job titles, says 'editor at large' Janet Street-Porter
By Anthony Joseph for MailOnline
Janet Street-Porter claims the BBC is a 'cosy middle-class' club full of overpaid bosses and 'meaningless' job titles.
The journalist, who is editor at large for The Independent on Sunday, worked at the BBC for 10 years.
She believes the broadcaster is now out of touch and 'self-satisfied'. Miss Street-Porter drew comparisons with W1A, the BBC1 comedy starring Hugh Bonneville, which is supposedly a parody of life at the BBC’s London headquarters.
But, she warned, the series is too close to real life to be a parody.
The 68-year-old said: ‘Sadly in my experience the series W1A is not a parody. It is a perfectly accurate depiction of most meetings at the BBC.
'Too many meetings and too little action, too many bosses paid far too much given impossibly pompous and meaningless titles replicating simple tasks.
‘They are masters of the opaque language of exclusion which reinforces the impression that a club of clever clogs are talking to each other, anxious not to offend and are scared of anything truly ground breaking, edgy or new.’
Speaking at the Radio Festival in London, Miss Street-Porter also questioned why the BBC has not got rid of senior management, as it pledged to do.
BBC director general Lord Hall said two years ago that he would strip out layers of senior management.
But last year, the number of staff on six-figure salaries actually increased by 31.
The broadcaster's overall wage bill also rose by £21.5million, as its headcount rose by 327 to 18,974.
Also speaking at the event, James Purnell, BBC director of strategy and digital, insisted that the BBC had still made savings because some of the senior managers were handling jobs that were once done by multiple staff on lower pay.
However, Miss Street-Porter, who is well-known for her forthright manner, reserved special criticism for the BBC’s creative director Alan Yentob, who became a laughing stock earlier this year when he used niche marketing jargon to try and argue that the Corporation serves a broad range of audiences.
‘There are quite a lot of programmes which reach out to audiences which are C2DEs, which aren’t the metropolitan elite,’ he said on Newsnight in March.
C2 and DE are terms used by marketing professionals to describe working class people – more than 47 per cent of the UK population.
Miss Street-Porter said this single statement from Mr Yentob ‘opened the lid on how the university-educated big cheeses at the BBC view a large section of their audience'.
'They see them as the kind of people they clearly do not run into in their social circles,’ she added.
A spokeswoman for the BBC told MailOnline: 'Janet has never been shy about offering an opinion but, while we appreciate there’s always more we can do, it’s a shame she doesn’t acknowledge the progress we have made in reflecting modern Britain.'
- The journalist launched an attack on her former employers today
- She believes the broadcaster is now out of touch and 'self-satisfied'
- Miss Street-Porter also asked why the BBC had got rid of senior bosses
- BBC said two years ago that it would strip out layers of senior management
- But in 2014, the number of staff on six-figure salaries increased by 31
By Anthony Joseph for MailOnline
Janet Street-Porter claims the BBC is a 'cosy middle-class' club full of overpaid bosses and 'meaningless' job titles.
The journalist, who is editor at large for The Independent on Sunday, worked at the BBC for 10 years.
She believes the broadcaster is now out of touch and 'self-satisfied'. Miss Street-Porter drew comparisons with W1A, the BBC1 comedy starring Hugh Bonneville, which is supposedly a parody of life at the BBC’s London headquarters.
But, she warned, the series is too close to real life to be a parody.
The 68-year-old said: ‘Sadly in my experience the series W1A is not a parody. It is a perfectly accurate depiction of most meetings at the BBC.
'Too many meetings and too little action, too many bosses paid far too much given impossibly pompous and meaningless titles replicating simple tasks.
‘They are masters of the opaque language of exclusion which reinforces the impression that a club of clever clogs are talking to each other, anxious not to offend and are scared of anything truly ground breaking, edgy or new.’
Speaking at the Radio Festival in London, Miss Street-Porter also questioned why the BBC has not got rid of senior management, as it pledged to do.
BBC director general Lord Hall said two years ago that he would strip out layers of senior management.
But last year, the number of staff on six-figure salaries actually increased by 31.
The broadcaster's overall wage bill also rose by £21.5million, as its headcount rose by 327 to 18,974.
Also speaking at the event, James Purnell, BBC director of strategy and digital, insisted that the BBC had still made savings because some of the senior managers were handling jobs that were once done by multiple staff on lower pay.
However, Miss Street-Porter, who is well-known for her forthright manner, reserved special criticism for the BBC’s creative director Alan Yentob, who became a laughing stock earlier this year when he used niche marketing jargon to try and argue that the Corporation serves a broad range of audiences.
‘There are quite a lot of programmes which reach out to audiences which are C2DEs, which aren’t the metropolitan elite,’ he said on Newsnight in March.
C2 and DE are terms used by marketing professionals to describe working class people – more than 47 per cent of the UK population.
Miss Street-Porter said this single statement from Mr Yentob ‘opened the lid on how the university-educated big cheeses at the BBC view a large section of their audience'.
'They see them as the kind of people they clearly do not run into in their social circles,’ she added.
A spokeswoman for the BBC told MailOnline: 'Janet has never been shy about offering an opinion but, while we appreciate there’s always more we can do, it’s a shame she doesn’t acknowledge the progress we have made in reflecting modern Britain.'