Evening Standard: Analysis - Mark Thompson's BBC cuts
By David Rowan
TO SOME depressed BBC staff, it looks like yet another Government victory. Thousands of job losses, a 15 per cent cut in programme budgets, 1,800 staff exiled to Manchester - and that's even before the Culture Secretary sets her own terms for granting a new charter.
Amid the gloom that has enveloped White City this week, there is at least a consensus that Mark Thompson's initial pronouncements show him to be a bold Director-General. But has he actually been far bolder than he needed, as some are claiming, imperilling the corporation's programming strength simply to curry favour in Whitehall?
"If you see this as a game of cards, it does look as though Thompson is playing all his trump cards too early," says Luke Crawley, a Bectu union representative who is meeting BBC managers this afternoon to negotiate the detail of the cuts. "My fear is that the Government will say, fine, we're pleased to see you're prepared to beat yourself so willingly, we'll finish off the job. And if he has got it wrong, thousands of staff will have lost their jobs for nothing."
The fear in Wood Lane is that last week's announcement was just the start.
Already Thompson has pledged to lose 2,500 support jobs and 400 in factual programmes, but hundreds if not thousands more are expected to go next summer, once department heads reveal how they will trim 15 per cent from their budgets.
Bectu says the cuts will be " devastating", the NUJ that there is already "no more fat to trim".
"Nobody's talking about anything else," explains an unimpressed documentary-maker.
"This has come at Christmas, and now we've got nine months of uncertainty with the threat of compulsory redundancies. After the Greg [Dyke] era, when we were all promised jobs for life, we're now all promised jobs for months.
Talk about a wakeup call."
The Evening Standard interviewed a number of BBC television and radio producers and editors this week, none of whom, understandably, was willing to be named.
One frequent concern was the hidden political manoeuvring suspected to have shaped Thompson's strategy. "The whole move out to Manchester is clearly designed to impress the politicians, but it's hardly going to help his declared goal of cutting costs," said one. Others detected more direct political intervention by BBC executives with close links to government.
While offering no evidence, some pointed fingers at Nicholas Kroll, the corporation's new director of governance, appointed in September from the Department of Culture.
WILL Wyatt, chief executive of BBC Broadcast during the Birt era, says that while BBC executives have always kept in close contact with politicians, this would have been Thompson's own strategy.
"There are conversations all the time between large public organisat ions and the sponsoring ministry, and Mark would be pretty daft not to acknowle d g e what they would expect from him.
It's nothing sinister - I don't think he'd be handed a list of things that had to be carried out.
He'd just know that he has to show that the corporation is lean - as they'll send in their own team of sharp-toothed accountants later on to go through the books."
Wyatt believes Thompson's axe could have gone even further: "The production side of the BBC is clearly too large in the factual area," he says. "Mark's played it pretty well. It's time to shake down and modernise."
One senior BBC administrator suspects that Thompson was simply judging the Government's "mood music" in his quest to retain the licence fee - even if that led him to be tougher than expected.
"The BBC would much prefer to get its retaliation in first - that's part of our whole culture of independence," the executive says.
"Yes, there was some Government pressure to get the governors' house in order and make them more independent - but in terms of the value for money review, the commercial strategy, the move to Manchester - that's all been internally driven."
So what of Kroll, who helped write the 1996 Broadcasting Act and, as acting permanent secretary at the DCMS, led the interview panel that chose Gavyn Davies as BBC chairman in 2001?
"He really didn't come here with an agenda demanding substantial change and cutbacks," the administrator says. "His agenda was that the governors should be more independent from management.
And all these proposals have come from management."
There was certainly resistance to Thompson's plans in closed meetings of the governors.
Perhaps it was the awkward admission inherent in the D-G's proposals that mismanagement had over- extended the BBC during their watch. But their chairman, Michael Grade, appears to have given Thompson his full support.
"This is not Grade v Thompson," says an outsider who knows both. "I think Michael sees the logic of what Mark says, even though he doesn't like it. I'm not sure even Mark likes it."
The real objections have come from the rank and file, whose loyalty to the new DG has been severely tested in the past week.
Making his mark: but Thompson may have been too hasty in announcing the redundancies Some of those the Standard spoke to complained of inconsistency in his declared intentions.
"It's as if one end of the corporation doesn't know what the other end is doing," says a documentary-maker. "In the recent commissioning rounds, the contemporary factual unit came out very well, yet that's the department they want to savage.
Meanwhile, they're highlighting the department for the quality of its programmes."
CONCERNS have also been aired that Thompson's pledge to put more work out to the independent sector will increase costs, defeating his moneysaving agenda.
"There seem to be so many aims in conflict," a Radio 4 programme-maker says.
"There's no clear focus, and our head of department claims to know little more than we do. No wonder morale is terrible."
Internal power games are also overshadowing Thompson's credibility. "Our fate was sealed when they put Peter Horrocks [head of current affairs] in charge of one of the reviews," the documentarymaker says. "So he thinks that no jobs should go in current affairs, and that all the cuts should be in rival departments. It's pathetic."
The cuts were accompanied by a pledge to boost "serious" programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. Yet even here, the vague promises are being greeted warily. "People on these programmes are wondering if the planned money is just being mentioned for PR," says one staffer.
"You get stories about 'serious journalism being bolstered', but are we going to see this money?"
At the very least, Thompson's honeymoon appears to be over.
But if a new round of cuts is demanded next spring, he may have a fight on his hands to retain the loyalty of his staff. John Birt, some programme-makers were recalling this week, may have succeeded in securing the licence last time round. But how many within the corporation remember him with goodwill?
(Evening Standard, December 15, 2004)
TO SOME depressed BBC staff, it looks like yet another Government victory. Thousands of job losses, a 15 per cent cut in programme budgets, 1,800 staff exiled to Manchester - and that's even before the Culture Secretary sets her own terms for granting a new charter.
Amid the gloom that has enveloped White City this week, there is at least a consensus that Mark Thompson's initial pronouncements show him to be a bold Director-General. But has he actually been far bolder than he needed, as some are claiming, imperilling the corporation's programming strength simply to curry favour in Whitehall?
"If you see this as a game of cards, it does look as though Thompson is playing all his trump cards too early," says Luke Crawley, a Bectu union representative who is meeting BBC managers this afternoon to negotiate the detail of the cuts. "My fear is that the Government will say, fine, we're pleased to see you're prepared to beat yourself so willingly, we'll finish off the job. And if he has got it wrong, thousands of staff will have lost their jobs for nothing."
The fear in Wood Lane is that last week's announcement was just the start.
Already Thompson has pledged to lose 2,500 support jobs and 400 in factual programmes, but hundreds if not thousands more are expected to go next summer, once department heads reveal how they will trim 15 per cent from their budgets.
Bectu says the cuts will be " devastating", the NUJ that there is already "no more fat to trim".
"Nobody's talking about anything else," explains an unimpressed documentary-maker.
"This has come at Christmas, and now we've got nine months of uncertainty with the threat of compulsory redundancies. After the Greg [Dyke] era, when we were all promised jobs for life, we're now all promised jobs for months.
Talk about a wakeup call."
The Evening Standard interviewed a number of BBC television and radio producers and editors this week, none of whom, understandably, was willing to be named.
One frequent concern was the hidden political manoeuvring suspected to have shaped Thompson's strategy. "The whole move out to Manchester is clearly designed to impress the politicians, but it's hardly going to help his declared goal of cutting costs," said one. Others detected more direct political intervention by BBC executives with close links to government.
While offering no evidence, some pointed fingers at Nicholas Kroll, the corporation's new director of governance, appointed in September from the Department of Culture.
WILL Wyatt, chief executive of BBC Broadcast during the Birt era, says that while BBC executives have always kept in close contact with politicians, this would have been Thompson's own strategy.
"There are conversations all the time between large public organisat ions and the sponsoring ministry, and Mark would be pretty daft not to acknowle d g e what they would expect from him.
It's nothing sinister - I don't think he'd be handed a list of things that had to be carried out.
He'd just know that he has to show that the corporation is lean - as they'll send in their own team of sharp-toothed accountants later on to go through the books."
Wyatt believes Thompson's axe could have gone even further: "The production side of the BBC is clearly too large in the factual area," he says. "Mark's played it pretty well. It's time to shake down and modernise."
One senior BBC administrator suspects that Thompson was simply judging the Government's "mood music" in his quest to retain the licence fee - even if that led him to be tougher than expected.
"The BBC would much prefer to get its retaliation in first - that's part of our whole culture of independence," the executive says.
"Yes, there was some Government pressure to get the governors' house in order and make them more independent - but in terms of the value for money review, the commercial strategy, the move to Manchester - that's all been internally driven."
So what of Kroll, who helped write the 1996 Broadcasting Act and, as acting permanent secretary at the DCMS, led the interview panel that chose Gavyn Davies as BBC chairman in 2001?
"He really didn't come here with an agenda demanding substantial change and cutbacks," the administrator says. "His agenda was that the governors should be more independent from management.
And all these proposals have come from management."
There was certainly resistance to Thompson's plans in closed meetings of the governors.
Perhaps it was the awkward admission inherent in the D-G's proposals that mismanagement had over- extended the BBC during their watch. But their chairman, Michael Grade, appears to have given Thompson his full support.
"This is not Grade v Thompson," says an outsider who knows both. "I think Michael sees the logic of what Mark says, even though he doesn't like it. I'm not sure even Mark likes it."
The real objections have come from the rank and file, whose loyalty to the new DG has been severely tested in the past week.
Making his mark: but Thompson may have been too hasty in announcing the redundancies Some of those the Standard spoke to complained of inconsistency in his declared intentions.
"It's as if one end of the corporation doesn't know what the other end is doing," says a documentary-maker. "In the recent commissioning rounds, the contemporary factual unit came out very well, yet that's the department they want to savage.
Meanwhile, they're highlighting the department for the quality of its programmes."
CONCERNS have also been aired that Thompson's pledge to put more work out to the independent sector will increase costs, defeating his moneysaving agenda.
"There seem to be so many aims in conflict," a Radio 4 programme-maker says.
"There's no clear focus, and our head of department claims to know little more than we do. No wonder morale is terrible."
Internal power games are also overshadowing Thompson's credibility. "Our fate was sealed when they put Peter Horrocks [head of current affairs] in charge of one of the reviews," the documentarymaker says. "So he thinks that no jobs should go in current affairs, and that all the cuts should be in rival departments. It's pathetic."
The cuts were accompanied by a pledge to boost "serious" programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. Yet even here, the vague promises are being greeted warily. "People on these programmes are wondering if the planned money is just being mentioned for PR," says one staffer.
"You get stories about 'serious journalism being bolstered', but are we going to see this money?"
At the very least, Thompson's honeymoon appears to be over.
But if a new round of cuts is demanded next spring, he may have a fight on his hands to retain the loyalty of his staff. John Birt, some programme-makers were recalling this week, may have succeeded in securing the licence last time round. But how many within the corporation remember him with goodwill?
(Evening Standard, December 15, 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, December 15, 2004
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