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| Challenges are mounting for new BBC chief | Challenges are mounting for new BBC chief |
| (7 months later) | |
| Five months after the shambles of Jimmy Savile, the great BBC fightback begins. Last week, the new BBC's incoming director general, Lord Hall, made the first of his management changes. Here was a signal of intent. A head of news becomes head of radio. A director of communications will leave later this year. And, most eye-catching of all, a former Labour secretary of state for culture (and thus the BBC) is hired to lead the corporation's campaign for a new royal charter come 2016. | Five months after the shambles of Jimmy Savile, the great BBC fightback begins. Last week, the new BBC's incoming director general, Lord Hall, made the first of his management changes. Here was a signal of intent. A head of news becomes head of radio. A director of communications will leave later this year. And, most eye-catching of all, a former Labour secretary of state for culture (and thus the BBC) is hired to lead the corporation's campaign for a new royal charter come 2016. |
| James Purnell as "director, strategy and digital" will be charged with masterminding its renewal. No past political allegiances are deemed relevant by Hall. Why should they be when Purnell's ultimate boss is a former chairman of the Conservative party? But on a salary nearly touching £300,000 – so that two prime ministers equal one Purnell? This is where the new team Tony Hall is putting together strays inevitably into the world of caustic headlines and outraged MPs. Money – salaries and pay-offs – has become a toxic issue for the BBC over the last five years. The handling of the Savile scandal was a disaster. George Entwistle's departure as DG, bearing £450,000 of licence fee money to ease his pain, was a debacle. | James Purnell as "director, strategy and digital" will be charged with masterminding its renewal. No past political allegiances are deemed relevant by Hall. Why should they be when Purnell's ultimate boss is a former chairman of the Conservative party? But on a salary nearly touching £300,000 – so that two prime ministers equal one Purnell? This is where the new team Tony Hall is putting together strays inevitably into the world of caustic headlines and outraged MPs. Money – salaries and pay-offs – has become a toxic issue for the BBC over the last five years. The handling of the Savile scandal was a disaster. George Entwistle's departure as DG, bearing £450,000 of licence fee money to ease his pain, was a debacle. |
| Some of these latest attacks, in fact, are pretty unfair. James Purnell is a thoughtful, experienced TV hand. British broadcasting needs his talent and intelligence, not more anodyne balance imposed by rote. He's a good choice, to be paid at a good (but still not really competitive) media market rate. When Tony Hall writes to his waiting staff about mixing "the best people from outside" with the "best people inside", he's right and he needs the time to create that blend. And yet it's not too early to harbour reservations about his direction of posited change. | Some of these latest attacks, in fact, are pretty unfair. James Purnell is a thoughtful, experienced TV hand. British broadcasting needs his talent and intelligence, not more anodyne balance imposed by rote. He's a good choice, to be paid at a good (but still not really competitive) media market rate. When Tony Hall writes to his waiting staff about mixing "the best people from outside" with the "best people inside", he's right and he needs the time to create that blend. And yet it's not too early to harbour reservations about his direction of posited change. |
| Newsnight's turmoil over reporting Savile's rampant paedophilia seemed to offer some straightforward lessons: too many layers of management, too many parcels of blame to pass up and down. But it's in no way clear that the great umbrella jobs at the top of the BBC will be honed for simpler purpose henceforth. James Purnell must look after strategy, public affairs, digital, audience, marketing and communications at board level, as well as getting his charter act together. Helen Boaden is to be head of radio, without any explanation of what is involved in superintending Today, Chris Evans, the Proms and World Service bulletins for Syria. Should the line boss of press relations have a board seat? That was the question as George Entwistle floundered and sank. It has not been addressed now as another "acting" supremo steps in. Nor has what you'd expect to be the first announcement out of the box: who will take over news and restore its battered morale? | Newsnight's turmoil over reporting Savile's rampant paedophilia seemed to offer some straightforward lessons: too many layers of management, too many parcels of blame to pass up and down. But it's in no way clear that the great umbrella jobs at the top of the BBC will be honed for simpler purpose henceforth. James Purnell must look after strategy, public affairs, digital, audience, marketing and communications at board level, as well as getting his charter act together. Helen Boaden is to be head of radio, without any explanation of what is involved in superintending Today, Chris Evans, the Proms and World Service bulletins for Syria. Should the line boss of press relations have a board seat? That was the question as George Entwistle floundered and sank. It has not been addressed now as another "acting" supremo steps in. Nor has what you'd expect to be the first announcement out of the box: who will take over news and restore its battered morale? |
| The fact is that there are deeper problems here, ones that can't be fixed by a new bum on a new seat, problems of corporate self-perception and introversion. Nick Pollard's report into Newsnight's tangles cost licence fee payers something north of £2m because all and sundry were allowed to hire lawyers at Broadcasting House expense. But at least, we thought, there'd be a bit of fun when the evidence we'd financed was published, as Lord Patten more or less pledged to do, Jeremy Paxman saying what he really thought about top management, for instance. Worth the price of admission alone. But no, another tribe of lawyers has gone through the transcripts, removing material that might have made a story or two or a libel case or three. What we'll see published next week won't be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but approximately 91% of that precious commodity. What is truth with 9% missing? It is red pencils run querulously riot. And it's wholly ridiculous (unless you're a legal eagle on piecework). | The fact is that there are deeper problems here, ones that can't be fixed by a new bum on a new seat, problems of corporate self-perception and introversion. Nick Pollard's report into Newsnight's tangles cost licence fee payers something north of £2m because all and sundry were allowed to hire lawyers at Broadcasting House expense. But at least, we thought, there'd be a bit of fun when the evidence we'd financed was published, as Lord Patten more or less pledged to do, Jeremy Paxman saying what he really thought about top management, for instance. Worth the price of admission alone. But no, another tribe of lawyers has gone through the transcripts, removing material that might have made a story or two or a libel case or three. What we'll see published next week won't be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but approximately 91% of that precious commodity. What is truth with 9% missing? It is red pencils run querulously riot. And it's wholly ridiculous (unless you're a legal eagle on piecework). |
| The BBC that Lord Hall inherits may preach incessantly about openness and transparency, but it doesn't deliver when it must. Roly Keating quit voluntarily as "directorate of archive" to become chief of the British Library on £145,000 a year, yet he picked up £375,000 at the door because his archive job has been abolished and supposedly doesn't need replacing. | The BBC that Lord Hall inherits may preach incessantly about openness and transparency, but it doesn't deliver when it must. Roly Keating quit voluntarily as "directorate of archive" to become chief of the British Library on £145,000 a year, yet he picked up £375,000 at the door because his archive job has been abolished and supposedly doesn't need replacing. |
| There are moments – Entwistle moments, as a matter of fact – when golden goodbyes for services rendered are appropriate, in honour and humanity. But there are also far too many moments in recent BBC history when departing executives have picked up fat farewells for no very evident purpose. This is something that was rife and out of hand under the previous director general and reached its nadir in 2011 when deputy director general Mark Byford left the corporation with a reputed £900,000 pay-off. He also took with him a pension of close to £4m. | There are moments – Entwistle moments, as a matter of fact – when golden goodbyes for services rendered are appropriate, in honour and humanity. But there are also far too many moments in recent BBC history when departing executives have picked up fat farewells for no very evident purpose. This is something that was rife and out of hand under the previous director general and reached its nadir in 2011 when deputy director general Mark Byford left the corporation with a reputed £900,000 pay-off. He also took with him a pension of close to £4m. |
| Should the BBC Trust have clamped down harder, sooner? Is the trust part of the answer or a dislocated part of the problem? Can you bring a huge, creative organisation of well over 20,000 souls together by issuing edicts from an office down the road? These are all critical issues as the corporation edges closer to its time of charter test, and they begin to define the biggest issue of the lot. | Should the BBC Trust have clamped down harder, sooner? Is the trust part of the answer or a dislocated part of the problem? Can you bring a huge, creative organisation of well over 20,000 souls together by issuing edicts from an office down the road? These are all critical issues as the corporation edges closer to its time of charter test, and they begin to define the biggest issue of the lot. |
| As the difference between a TV screen and a computer screen vanishes, as Netflix and its competitors stream films and specials on demand, then the whole rigmarole of channels, controllers and commissioning budgets begins to look like a house of cards. Why construct hierarchies in neat boxes of supposed tradition and audience image when technical innovation demands something quite different? Why opt for conventional corporatism at all? Tony Hall, with only four or so years in the chair before final retirement, can't be expected to provide pat solutions – and James Purnell will have little thinking time to spare. But the ultimate threat to the BBC, as we know and often have good cause to love it, is here as the broadcasting game itself – fixed supply and demand – changes for ever. | As the difference between a TV screen and a computer screen vanishes, as Netflix and its competitors stream films and specials on demand, then the whole rigmarole of channels, controllers and commissioning budgets begins to look like a house of cards. Why construct hierarchies in neat boxes of supposed tradition and audience image when technical innovation demands something quite different? Why opt for conventional corporatism at all? Tony Hall, with only four or so years in the chair before final retirement, can't be expected to provide pat solutions – and James Purnell will have little thinking time to spare. But the ultimate threat to the BBC, as we know and often have good cause to love it, is here as the broadcasting game itself – fixed supply and demand – changes for ever. |
| None of this will be instant. None of it means that immediate reforms of structures, rewards and the rest are pointless. None of it diminishes the BBC's responsibilities to make sure that the advantages of size it possesses, for instance in the strength and resource of its overseas reporting, are properly used and exploited. But nobody, least of all Tony Hall, can suppose that fair words and titles can put the old genies back in their box. This fightback is one for relevance, for a role that serves the public but leaves room for other roles to grow. This future is one that has to be made afresh. | None of this will be instant. None of it means that immediate reforms of structures, rewards and the rest are pointless. None of it diminishes the BBC's responsibilities to make sure that the advantages of size it possesses, for instance in the strength and resource of its overseas reporting, are properly used and exploited. But nobody, least of all Tony Hall, can suppose that fair words and titles can put the old genies back in their box. This fightback is one for relevance, for a role that serves the public but leaves room for other roles to grow. This future is one that has to be made afresh. |
| • This article will be opened for comments on Sunday morning | • This article will be opened for comments on Sunday morning |
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