The BBC reports: “BBC radio shows cannot be properly scrutinised because of confidentiality agreements with presenters over pay, the Public Accounts Committee has said.”
“MPs complain that watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) was not given access to individual salaries because it would not sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
Update: Also MediaGuardian reports here: ‘BBC overpays radio presenters, says scathing MPs’ report’
We just heard news that Ian Davies, director of business development at Archant, has died in a plane crash – as reported at the BBC, Press Gazette and in his group’s newspaper, the Norwich Evening News.
Journalism.co.uk is extremely sad to hear of this tragic accident.
On a personal note, I met Ian and some his colleagues for the first time, at the WAN conference in Amsterdam last fortnight.
Despite cornering him after a long conference session to badger him for information about Archant’s hyperlocal news plans, he was only too friendly towards me, happy to help and give suggestions for stories.
I later had opportunity to chat with him more informally and find a bit more out about his views on the media and what he does. He assured me he would always be willing to contribute to related articles.
True to his word, last week he was quick to contribute to an article I was working on at the last minute. I’m very saddened by the premature end to his life.
In an email he told me he was looking forward to working more flexibly at Archant from January, so that he could fit in more time for his passion, flying. His website shows some of his interests. That his life was cut so short, when he had so much enthusiasm for his projects, seems a particularly cruel hand of fate.
Our condolences go out to Ian’s family, friends and colleagues.
The BBC has named BBC Two controller Roly Keating as its first director of archive content.
Keating, who will take up his new role in October, will be responsible for the corporation’s tv, radio and multimedia archive. He will be tasked with increasing public access to this content, a press release from the BBC said.
He will work with the newly appointed director of the BBC’s Future Media & Technology department Erik Huggers on the digitisation of the archive and take charge of BBC archived content on on-demand services such as the iPlayer.
“Unlocking the value of broadcast archives is one of the great opportunities opened up by digital media – and the BBC has the greatest archive of them all, with untold potential public value,” he said.
The BBC Two controller position will be advertised in the autumn.
The BBC’s executive directors’ pay rose by £708,000 in 2007/8 with pay for the 10 directors totalling £4,960,000, according to figures from the corporation’s annual report.
Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, received a bonus of £41,000, while outgoing director of Future Media & Technology Ashley Highfield received £34,000. Director general Mark Thompson rejected the offer of an annual bonus.
Both the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and BECTU have challenged the rises in light of 2,500 proposed job cuts at the corporation announced in October.
“Management should have the decency to show restraint at a time when so many BBC staff are under huge pressures following major cutbacks. This announcement will only serve to disillusion staff further,” Paul McLaughlin, NUJ broadcasting organiser, said in a statement from the union.
Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, reiterated the need to improve the management structure of bbc.co.uk before approving further investment. In May the site’s management was blamed for losing ‘effective control’ after a £36 million overspend.
More figures from the report:
BBC Worldwide
Analysis of BBC Worldwide (part of the annual report and separate reviews released) emphasised the importance of online in growing its global audience. The service’s online audience rose 34 per cent year-on-year. However, the review highlighted the failure of Spanish-language site BBC Mundo to meet the demands of increased internet access.
The launch of BBC Arabic came in for particular praise in the review, creating ‘trimedia’ BBC coverage in Arabic:
“With the launch of BBC Arabic television, our multimedia strategy took a giant step forward. That moment in March 2008 marked the successful culmination of a four-year journey to secure funding and deliver a high-quality television service in a vital region of the world.”
Online revenues accounted for 2.7 per cent of total sales for BBC Worldwide in 2007/8 – rising from 1.1 per cent previously, the report said. The creation of bbc.com and syndication deals with YouTube and iTunes were cited as key revenue drivers for the service.