I’ve really enjoyed my time as editor and am looking forward to watching the blog and the website develop from afar.

Bridget Middleton was the editor of About the BBC

"One of the most common complaints to BBC television in recent years has been that some people find it hard to hear the dialogue in our shows.

They cite many reasons for this, the most common among them being background music being too loud.

As a result of these complaints in 2009, Jay Hunt (my predecessor as controller of BBC One) launched an extensive study into why people were experiencing these difficulties.

BBC Vision's Audibility project was a huge undertaking. It involved using our 20,000-strong panel of TV viewers across the age, geographical and social demographic and a good deal of technical experimentation."

Read Danny's post in full and comment on the TV blog.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

Tim Davie, Director of Audio & Music talks about the new radio programmes announced today and the reasons for changing the name of Radio 7 to Radio 4 Extra.

"Today we announced a series of new programmes which will be appearing on our digital radio stations. Also, we confirmed that we are changing the name of BBC Radio 7 to BBC Radio 4 Extra in April. You can find all the details in the press release."

Read Tim’s post in full on the Radio Blog..

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

The picture shows Roy Plomley and his guest Noel Coward on the occasion of the twenty-first anniversary of Desert Island Discs in 1963. Coward had been on the list of guests drawn up by Plomley when he devised the programme in 1941.

"It is rare that passionate radio listeners overwhelmingly and immediately support the scheduling changes that we make to a well-loved BBC radio station. However, having just announced that Radio 3 will broadcast live concerts every weekday at 7.30 p.m. for 46 weeks of the year, the reaction has been almost universally positive. It is welcome news for UK performing groups and listeners who will enjoy an invitation to so many outstanding classical performances. What is perhaps less apparent is that it represents a deliberate move across BBC radio to keep building the percentage of live output that we air on our stations."

You can read the rest of Tim's post and comment on the Radio 3 blog.

Bridget Middleton is Editor of About the BBC 

"Last week, one section of the CBBC website was relaunched in a radically improved and more easily navigable format, so I'd like to explain what it is that we have done and how we got to where we are.

The first CBBC website

The first incarnation of the CBBC website appeared back in 1995: in this video you can see it being introduced by Toby Anstis. The world was a different place back then, and I should warn you that statistically 3.4 of you will actually die laughing while watching this, so please view with assistance nearby. "

You can read Phil's post in full and comment on the Internet Blog.

"It's been a painful day for the BBC World Service and the 180 million audiences around the world. This morning I announced a fundamental restructure to the BBC World Service in order to meet the 16% savings target required by the UK government's Spending Review last October.

 

At the moment BBC WS is funded by Grant-in-Aid provided by the government.

BBC WS will be funded by the licence fee from April 2014.

Over the next three years, we will have to make to an annual saving of £46m by April 2014".

You can read Peter's blog in full and comment on The Editors.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

Dear All,

After nearly four years with BBC Future Media & Technology, Erik Huggers is to leave the BBC at the end of February to become Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, based at its Silicon Valley headquarters in California. 

Since he became Director in August 2008, Future Media & Technology has helped to re-establish the BBC’s strength in technology, and as a result changed perceptions of the BBC as an innovator and strengthened our relationship with the public.  During his tenure, BBC Online, BBC Red Button and BBC Mobile have seen exceptional growth, while BBC iPlayer delivered a record 145 million TV and Radio programme views across some 60 devices during December.  

Erik is the key architect for a radical refocusing of BBC Online as part of our proposals for Delivering Quality First, which we will be announcing in due course. He also presided over significant technology projects such as W1, BBC North and Fabric and has chaired the YouView consortia to the point where it was incorporated as a joint venture. He has been a dynamic and inspiring colleague and I wish him all the best with his new role at Intel.

Following Erik's departure we have decided, in part following conversations within the division, to reorganise the Future Media & Technology area into two more distinct areas – the development of our digital services to the public such as BBC iPlayer (Future Media) and the core, underlying technology which powers the BBC (Technology). And so rather than replacing Erik with a new Director of FM&T, I have asked two of Erik's direct reports to step up.

 As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), John Linwood will head up a new Technology division which will be responsible for delivering the BBC's digital needs in terms of production, broadcast, connectivity and enterprise support. He will continue to be responsible for Information & Archives. The division will be part of the Operations Group under the overall leadership of the Chief Operating Officer, Caroline Thomson.  As CTO, John will sit on the BBC Direction Group (BDG). 

 John has done an outstanding job over the past 18 months in leading the Broadcast and Enterprise Technology Group at the BBC and driving projects like W1, BBC North and Fabric to successful implementation. I believe that giving John leadership of a separate Technology division and a seat on BDG will help him take the digital transformation of the BBC to the next level.

 I am also appointing Ralph Rivera as Director of Future Media, a division which will focus on developing and delivering digital products and services. The Future Media side of FM&T also has many recent successes to its name, including BBC iPlayer. It too faces immense challenges as the pace of digital change quickens, and we strive to meet our audiences’ changing needs. For that reason, Ralph will be a member of the Executive Board where we can continue the critical conversations with both executive and non-executive directors about how the BBC meets the consumer challenges we face in a converged, fully digital world. BBC Research & Development, led by Matthew Postgate, will report in to Ralph's division though it will continue to partner with the broader BBC and industry.

These changes are effective from March 1, 2011. Please join me in congratulating John and Ralph on their new roles, and thanking Erik for everything he has done for the BBC over the past few years.

All the best,

Mark Thompson, Director-General

Read our statement on the Press Office website

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

He said: 

“The BBC is being realistic taking prompt action to make sure it meets future funding limits, while continuing to aim to devote 90 per cent of spending on content and getting it to the public.

“Rather than imposing these efficiency savings and reductions in a top down manner we are asking people who work at the front line to say how these can best be achieved.

“The tough but realistic settlement we achieved gives us certainty of funding for six years. However, the BBC is not immune to the economic climate and it will require tough decisions to achieve these savings.”

You can read more about delivering quality first here.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

Jessica Shiel, Product Manager for Blogs, User Services, Programmes and On-Demand wants to know what you think about the Beta version of our newly designed blogs homepage.

You can read her blog and to take part in the survey, on the Internt Blog.

 Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

Pope Benedict XVI, will deliver his Thought For The Day on Radio 4, Friday 24th December at 7.45am.

Pope Benedict's Christmas message to the British people follows his UK visit in September. In an unprecedented move - the Pope has not presented material specifically written for a radio or television audience before - Pope Benedict recorded Thought For The Day in Rome on Wednesday 22nd December.

Take a look at the Radio 4 blog for the full story.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

Far from being full of things you’ve seen before, there’s a veritable feast of brand new festive programmes on all our channels. There won’t be any repeats on BBC one in prime time between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, just like there weren’t last year, and the amount of repeats on BBC Two is also down on last year. In fact, the number across both channels in that period is the lowest it has been for at least four years.

If you’d like to know more about what’s on offer and watch the show reel, head over to the TV blog to read Jana Bennett’s blog about the schedule and all the great new programmes on the BBC over Christmas.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the BBC

In order to support BBC iPlayer, BT Vision will update the software on their boxes, rolling it out gradually across their customer base. Once a box is upgraded, our app can be launched from BT Vision's main menu, giving access to more than 400 hours of new TV programmes and many more hours of BBC radio each week."

Gideon Summerfield, the Product Manager of TV iPlayer has written about BBC iPlayer on BT Vision. You can read Gideon’s post in full and comment on the Internet Blog. 

Anyone who thinks differently doesn't really understand how the organisation works and how seriously we take issues around balance and impartiality.’

Over at The Editors, Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, defends the impartiality of our journalists after an article in the Daily Mail claims the BBC is biased against the Government spending plans.

Mark Thompson looks ahead to a year when the size and shape of the post-switchover BBC will emerge; the Canvas internet TV partnership should forge ahead; some of question marks over BBC Worldwide may be removed; and a new government could be calling the shots on how a future BBC will be paid for.

Canvas
Thompson has no doubt that the joint venture to bring catch-up TV into the living-room via broadband will be one of the biggest developments and challenges. "Canvas has the potential to utterly transform the way people think about broadcasting, the internet and universal take-up of broadband, with BBC iPlayer, itv.com and 4oD accessed by millions of households via their main TV set," he says.

Funding
Expected any day, Greg Dyke's heavily leaked creative review for the Conservatives will almost certainly call for the licence fee to be scrapped and replaced by funding from central taxation.

But Thompson would be surprised to see any great change this year. "[Culture Secretary] Ben Bradshaw has said he believes in the licence fee and [Shadow Culture Secretary] Jeremy Hunt that the Tories will abide by the multi-year settlement."

Meanwhile, BBC Worldwide - restricted to a tighter remit by the commercial review - may be heading for a record trading year, the Director-General says. And BBC World Service will talk to the government about grant-in-aid, amid immense pressure on public spending, ahead of its next settlement in 2011.

Strategic review
Thompson plans to publish his first proposals in February. He has already suggested that the BBC website might be trimmed back and that there will be fewer acquired programmes.

"For the public, the biggest question marks are around programme quality and distinctiveness," he notes. "So our focus is on big-impact, quality content that makes a difference. In 2010 that will include Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects and content around the Year of Science."

What about the onward march of bbc.co.uk? "The website is an amazing media success, with 27million users a month, but it's grown like Topsy and some parts are less focused than others."

Is it inevitable that broadcast services will close? "There is not one service that's not there for a good reason, but in a world where there are lots of ways to get quality content, it's reasonable to ask whether there are other ways to access that content."

On Worldwide: "It's right to keep an open mind [on ownership] but continue to look at all the opportunities to develop BBC intellectual properties, not just simple privatisation."

And the proposed joint venture with Channel 4? "A partnership around secondary exploitation of great programmes makes good sense. I hope we can make progress. That will depend on Channel 4's new chief executive."

Salaries
On the continuing pressure over executive pay and star salaries, Thompson - grilled on the subject by Today guest editor PD James - says "We've been tougher on bonuses and executive pay than any other public company or broadcaster."

"The public sector pay debate will continue... but we're not a county council. If you want someone to run BBC One or develop iPlayer, you need the very best people in the world. And they're paid much less here than they would be at ITV or Sky."

He adds: "The public has every right to know what we spend on stars' salaries as a whole, but there is no public interest served in revealing individual [details]."

Out-of-London
"There were," says the Director-General, "dire predictions that no one would want to go to Salford [46 per cent have said yes]. We'll soon be recruiting new talent in the North West. Salford is looking good."

The commitment to base 50 per cent of network TV production out of the capital will be "one of way we add value": "You've only to go to Glasgow and see the critical mass that is developing along the Clyde."

IT systems
The Director-General is candid about the lessons to be learned from recent massive IT failures affecting phones and PCs.

"The frailty of our overall systems has been exposed. We have a legacy of IT systems which we've been trying to do more and more with, and we've now had a series of warnings. We're working hard to minimise the same thing happening again - thinking strategically to make sure we've got the infrastructure we need."

Content
The World Cup and another F1 season will make it a great sporting year, Thompson says, and drama highlights will include Patrick Stewart's Macbeth at Easter.

"Radio 4 is on amazing form and, internationally, Persian TV will continue to have huge impact." At home, the general election promises to be "one of the most interesting in my time in broadcasting".

Confidence
Given everything on the horizon, can the BBC feel confident at the start of the new decade? "There was an interesting moment in 2009, after James Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture. Yes, there was criticism of the BBC, but did people want to lose it? No, and that includes most politicians. There won't be any less noise around us in 2010, but yes, we have room to be confident."

Bridget Middleton is editing the About the BBC blog this week. Chris Jones is on holiday.