The BBC Radio blog

Peter Horrocks' somewhat smaller world

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Spare a thought for the BBC's newish Director of the World Service Peter Horrocks.

No sooner has he sat down in his seat in Bush House than his paymaster, the Foreign Office, announces an unprecedented cut of 20 per cent in its funding.

No sooner has Mr Horrocks announced the inevitable closures and loss of jobs that have resulted, after tortuous negotiations with the Board of Management, the BBC Trust and the Foreign Office, than his chief lieutenant Craig Oliver announces that he is going to work for the Prime Minister whose Government has just inflicted such pain.

Mr Oliver is the new Andy Coulson or Alastair Campbell, running the media operation at No 10 and perhaps even now preparing to complain about the way his former employers have reported the latest Downing St initiative.

He certainly knows who to ring.

Craig Oliver ran the BBC's election coverage and edited its main TV news programmes, so jaws didn't just drop in the newsroom when news of his political appointment flashed up on screen, they crashed to the floor.

Of course I knew none of this when I interviewed Peter Horrocks in Bush House on Tuesday evening. I thought he looked a little distracted, but put that down to boredom with my questions, which were hardly original, as opposed of course to those which you, dear listener, had sent me.

When I talked to Mr Horrocks I asked him about the statement which William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, had made in the House of Commons, that the BBC had originally proposed that up to 13 languages should go but that the Government had refused permission for such a large cull. Was that true?

Here at Feedback we are eagerly awaiting the appointment of a new Chair for the BBC Trust, the person who is supposed, above all, to protect your interests. As soon as we know who he is (and it most likely will be a he) - we'll try to get them on the programme. Let me know what you'd like to me to ask him.

Roger Bolton is presenter of Feedback

Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Feedback is on Twitter. Follow @BBCR4Feedback.
Peter Horrocks wrote about the cuts on the BBC Editors blog last week.
Richard Sambrook, once a Director of Global News at the BBC, has some advice for Peter Horrocks in The Guardian. Neil Midgley in The Telegraph says that MPs are angry with the Foreign Secretary about the World Service cuts. Melanie McDonagh in The Evening Standard says that "life can carry on without the BBC World Service."
The picture shows BBC World Service staff protesting against the cuts outside Bush House. It's by Ben Sutherland. Some rights reserved.

Tim Davie on DAB's 'ambitious target'

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:55:24 +0000

Editor's note: Tim Davie was interviewed on today's Feedback, Radio 4's weekly accountability programme - SB.

"The BBC should be ashamed of themselves for running this ad. They are telling their listeners to buy something they know isn't ready for us yet."

That was William Rogers, Chief Executive of the commercial radio station UKRD.

He was talking about the Digital Radio UK Christmas campaign featuring David Mitchell and Arthur Smith, launched this week (November 22) and running until Christmas Eve.

BBC TV and Radio is running its own companion advertisments but some commercial radio stations are holding off.

Mr Rogers isn't finished.

He says it was "fundamentally immoral and dishonest" to run the campaign "knowing that the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) infrastructure is not good enough and knowing full well that when people buy a DAB radio it may not work when they get it home".

This week on Feedback I talked about these claims with the BBC's head of radio Tim Davie.

Fifteen per cent of listening is currently on DAB radio and that figure rises to nearly 25 per cent for listening on all digital platforms - online etc. Many of us have lots of analogue radios which we have no desire to see become redundant.

The Government"s target date for digital switchover (which means analogue switch-off) is still 2015, though it is now called an "aspiration" by the Coalition, "ambitious" by tactful radio executives, and "impossible" by some others.

Hear what Tim Davie has to say about Britain's digital future:

PS On a personal note it is difficult to talk to the whippet thin Tim Davie without wondering about his obsession with running marathons, and the fact that this year he ran the 48 miles from home to work nonstop for charity.

I really must go to the gym again.

Roger Bolton is presenter of Feedback on BBC Radio 4

Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Ford Ennals, Chief Executive of DRUK (Digital Radio UK) was interviewed by Evan Davis on Today and the programme followed up on his numbers a few days later.
Former BBC Radio executive James Cridland took on the issue of listener numbers on his blog.
Feedback is now on Twitter. Follow @BBCFeedback.
The picture shows DAB radios in a shop. It's by Salim Fadhley. Some rights reserved.

Sir Michael Lyons on the new licence fee settlement

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:50:00 +0000

In this week's edition of the BBC's in-house newspaper 'Ariel', the main feature is about the heavy workload the BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, now has as a result of the recent cull of executive board members. One of her three main responsibilities, it said, was preparing for the renegotiation of the licence fee which was expected to start in 2011 and take a considerable amount of time.

Well hardly had the paper hit the Corporation's corridors than her load suddenly got considerably lighter. On Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the licence fee would be frozen for six years. The negotiations were over before they had started.

The deal, which means a 16% cut in the BBC's income, was hammered out in an extraordinary last-minute negotiation, so last-minute that no-one told the Board of S4C, the Welsh language television broadcaster, that the BBC was taking it over. The S4C Chairman is now talking of going to judicial review.

The licence fee-payer is now to pay for the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring as well as for some local initiatives which are dear to the heart of the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. In the view of some the BBC's independence has been revealed as a mirage since the Corporation has been treated like a Government department caught up in a spending - or rather a cutting - round.

I went to see the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, shortly after the Chancellor had made his Commons speech. Some BBC executives were shell-shocked by the announcements but Sir Michael was determined to put a positive face on the settlement, perhaps because, as a former council leader, he was well aware of the scale of the cuts which had just been imposed on local authorities.

Here is an extended version of my Feedback interview:

Do you think listeners should be consulted or are you happy for the decisions to be made on your behalf?

Roger Bolton is presenter of Feedback

Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Feedback is now on Twitter. Follow @BBCFeedback.
Steve Hewlett also interviewed Sir Michael Lyons on this week's Media Show.
The picture shows Sir Michael Lyons, Chair of the BBC Trust.