Tag: BBC

All change for the besieged BBC

Martin Tripp Associates

It’s been a rough few months for the old British Broadcasting Corporation. With the many criticisms of its coverage of the general election still ringing in its ears, it has seen a surprise fall in the proportion of the British public who see it as a trustworthy source of news. The new Tory government has also been hinting heavily it will review the validity of the license fee in this new era of subscription services. Last week it drew ire for the brutal and mishandled axing of the Victoria Derbyshire show, which has been lauded over the past few years as being a bastion of the sort of public interest journalism the BBC is publicly funded to provide. And now, they have announced cutting 450 jobs in the newsroom.

Bearing bountiful challenges

Little wonder, then, that director general Tony Hall chose last week to step down – with some interpreting it as a pre-emptive move to prevent further strictures being placed on its ability to report on a sitting government.

The reality is, though, that the issues facing the BBC run too deep to be sorted with a single resignation. The entertainment and news worlds have changed, with subscription to entertainment services the norm and the manner in which we increasingly consume news fundamentally changing. Those critical of the BBC have pointed out that it has been slow to adapt – and then when it has, it has done so poorly.

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The business case for making UK media less homogenous

Chris Sutcliffe

Last month Channel 4 announced it had chosen Leeds as the location of its new second national headquarters, with around a quarter of its London-based staff making the move. Though Leeds had been on the announced shortlist as far back as June, the announcement managed to take media twitchers by surprise, as it was seen as having the longest odds compared to other shortlisted cities like Birmingham and Manchester.

The national channel also announced it will open creative hubs in Bristol and Glasgow, each with around 50 staff, as part of a plan to increase the amount Channel 4 spends on programmes outside London by £250m over the next five years.

Speaking at the time of the announcement, Channel 4’s chief executive said the move would involve more “people from across the UK and supercharge the impact we have in all parts of the country”.

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Show me the video games!

James Dodd

We have long argued that the video games industry should be treated as seriously as those other pillars of the entertainment business, film and music. Government seems to be getting the message, and – as we reported last month – the figures certainly stack up.

But perhaps the BBC is still struggling with the idea of video games as a grown-up industry in its own right. When the industry does get coverage (on the Today show, for example), the presenters are typically as well informed as, say, a US senator facing a Facebook Chief Executive.

picture of Bafta Games video games Awards

Show Me The Video Games

And then there was last week’s broadcast of the BAFTA Games Awards ceremony. If there is one thing

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The age of ‘audience-first’ publishing needs a fresh set of metrics

Chris Sutcliffe

At the tail end of 2017 many round-ups and prediction pieces (including my own) confidently asserted that 2018 will be the age of ‘audience-first’ publishing. It sounds an unnecessary description – surely publishing has always put audiences at the heart of their strategies – but it means something very tangible, and something that will hugely impact the media landscape over the next few months.

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After the Manchester attack – assessing trust, bias, and media responsibility

Rebecca Davy

This time the US media is in trouble for real news. Following the dreadful events in Manchester on Monday evening, the New York Times has published sensitive photographs and documents which, it is feared, might compromise the ongoing investigations into the bombing. The source is said to be from within the US security services – but the question of media responsibility again raises its head.

The NYT has been widely condemned in the British media: yet, as Hacked Off’s Brian Cathcart pointed out in a column last week, mainstream US journalists have in recent times been standard-bearers for the profession, in the face of a lot of pressure from government and commentators.

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Diversity in Media: how some companies are making a difference

Rebecca Davy

The media industry is still too white.

Back in 2001, Greg Dyke said that the BBC was ‘hideously white’ . That was fifteen years ago and was indicative of our industry at that time.

The issue of race and gender diversity in the workplace is not a new one, yet it is still one that needs to be discussed because little is changing and it’s not changing quickly enough.

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Why the Bake Off move is great news for C4

Martin Tripp

The general tenor of the debate around the move of The Great British Bake Off from BBC to Channel 4 is that it is a travesty, equivalent to Love Productions selling the Crown Jewels. Bizarrely, even former Channel 4 CEO (and ex-BBC Chairman) Michael Grade has lambasted C4’s behaviour and warned that it was likely to hasten full privatisation.

As the prospect of C4’s privatisation has been on the cards for at least ten years, this seems a red herring. Surely, if it is going to be sold off, it needs to be commercially strong, and so the question should be: does buying Bake Off make commercial sense?

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What can we learn from media changes in the 20 years since I became a headhunter?

Martin Tripp

In 1996, half the Internet users in the world subscribed to AOL

2016 marks twenty years since I became a headhunter. While that makes me feel incredibly old, it has been a fascinating time to be an observer of the media landscape across the UK and beyond.

When I first started, the internet existed, but was a hard-to-use and limited resource with dial-up access. Email also existed, but not in my office (we relied on faxes). Things were changing, yes; but no-one had really grasped the magnitude of what was about to happen.

If you really want to know how much the media world has changed in the intervening years, imagine saying this back in 1996:

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Media recruitment: NAO Report on BBC severance pay

Martin Tripp

The BBC does have an amazing propensity for self-flagellation – as I have noted before.

Last night was a great example. I was interviewed for around ten minutes by Newsnight to reflect on the NAO’s damning report into severance payments at the BBC.

Hiring, firing and media recruitment at the BBC is always a hot topic. The Corporation has paid out an extraordinary-sounding £25m over three years to 150 senior executives for redundancies, compromise and other exit payments.

In the longer pre-recorded interview, the point I wanted to get across was that the BBC was, on the whole, a fairly responsible organisation. Certainly, its payoffs for George Entwistle and others pale in comparison with those to some media executives like Sly Bailey and Rebekah Brooks. £25m over three years represents less than 0.2% of the Corporation’s £5bn annual budget: pretty good going for a business undergoing a massive relocation and restructuring programme. (Bailey and Brooks between them would have accounted for half of that.)

My strong feeling is that the BBC is under such scrutiny because it is – with some justification – hugely resented by other media companies because of its guaranteed source of income. They see the Corporation as the privileged, over-fed progeny of successive governments: whereas, in truth, the mentality inside the Beeb is a little like that of an unwanted and bullied step-child.

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Media recruiting: BBC welcomes James Harding with another furore

Martin Tripp

It is odd to think of the BBC as a victim of bullying. It is by far the largest and best-funded child in the playground, should be afforded the protection of the headmaster (though it rarely is), and consistently hands in top work. But, of course, in the pathology of the playground, this makes it a natural victim. And the fact that it consistently takes a mea culpa position rather than punching back only makes the problem worse. Come on, Beeb, the circling bullies chant. Have a go if you think you’re hard enough.

Like many victims of bullying, it simply doesn’t know how to respond to such goading. Mostly, it demurs. Occasionally, it tries to bite back. And inevitably this misfires.

So when Ceri Thomas stepped up to say that the students who accompanied John Sweeney on the trip to North Korea had all given their consent, he must have been aware he was likely to be challenged. The BBC’s Today programme didn’t take long to get stuck in;  when asked how he could be sure this was the case (students were briefed individually, without witnesses, and signed no consent document) he blustered: it doesn’t matter whether it was done orally or in writing, he said. Because of the lack of evidence, of course, it matters enormously. The corporation’s detractors will pick away at these bones, and there are at least some of the LSE students who are willing to undermine Thomas’s version of events.

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Media headhunters’ role in search for BBC Director General

Martin Tripp

Dermot Murnaghan interviewed me today on Sky News about George Entwistle’s departure and the new search for Director General at the BBC. It was a warm-up for his interview with Tim Davie, which ended testily, with the acting DG saying he had a job to get on with and walking off. In contrast, my interview was the very embodiment of civility.

Prior to my interview, I was asked several questions by Sky staff which didn’t make it to air – and some may be worth recording. The following contains a summary of those questions and my answers.

Q: Is it normal for internal candidates to be appointed?

A: As has been fairly well documented, the media headhunters concerned in Entwistle’s recruitment (not us) approached and interviewed a broad range of candidates for the role. The shortlist contained

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Murdoch at 11th place in The Guardian’s Media 100 is too low

Martin Tripp

At this time every year, The Guardian publishes its Media 100 – a list of the most powerful people in the UK sector. At this time every year, our media executive search team spends 20 minutes in the office dissecting it, and some time texting those people we know with jokey messages about their brilliance or under-representation. And at this time every year, I write nothing about it.

There’s no point getting hot under the collar about the often seemingly arbitrary names that start to come in after place 20 on the list. The fact that there are 47 new entries on this year’s list illustrates the point: the media market is moving fast, of course; but not

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Media headhunter’s view on Sky and Public Serving Broadcasting

Martin Tripp

I am writing this at 9.15pm on a Monday night simply to avoid the agony of watching Andy Murray in the US Open final on Sky. Not because I dislike Murray: I am one of his most ardent supporters. But I can’t bear the tension. Let me know how it goes.

Instead, I am listening to Test Match Special while England play South Africa in the second T20 international. It’s been cut to nine overs apiece, so I haven’t got long. This after watching coverage of the Olympic parade through the centre of London on BBC1; and following on from Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics, which finished yesterday.

A glut of sports, then. But one thing strikes me – the excellence

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