Tag Archives: BBC

BBC ‘does not fully understand’ effects of savings on services, committee reports

The Public Accounts Committee issued a report earlier today claiming that the BBC “does not fully understand” what effects its savings have had on the output of its services.

In the report, which was published on the Parliament website today, the committee said the broadcaster “has made good progress towards the efficiency target set by the BBC Trust in 2007” but criticised the BBC for not carrying out “a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of what it produces to support its decisions about where to make savings.”

The BBC does not know with confidence whether the savings it has delivered have affected the quality of its services. In future the BBC will be going beyond efficiency savings by making cuts to services, and it must be clear about the distinction between the two.

The BBC should publish how it expects cuts to impact on services, the level of impact it is willing to tolerate, and how it will respond if these levels are breached.

According to the report, in trying to make savings the BBC analysed more than 50 audience measures covering its services, comparing them to similar analyses carried out in 2007-08.

As a result the BBC was said to have found that although some quality measures had fallen over the interval, these were not the same measures that had been under-performing in the earlier analysis.

The committee’s report also included criticism of the BBC’s accounting, claiming that it was “unambitious” in delivering cost savings.

See the full report here.

The BBC had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

#followjourn – @suttonnick Nick Sutton/editor

Who? Nick Sutton

Where? Nick is editor of BBC Radio 4 programmes the World at One, the World This Weekend and What The Papers Say. He is also known on Twitter for tweeting out newspaper front and back pages under the #tomorrowspaperstoday hashtag.

Twitter? @suttonnick

He spoke to Journalism.co.uk more about breaking into the radio industry in this video interview.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to Rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to@journalismnews.

Media release: Sian Williams swaps BBC Breakfast for Radio 4

BBC Breakfast presenter Sian Williams is moving to Radio 4, after reportedly not wanting to move to the broadcaster’s new base at MediaCity in Salford, Greater Manchester.

The BBC said in a release today that Williams will join Radio 4’s Saturday Live magazine show from 5 May. Her last morning presenting BBC Breakfast will be on March 15.

Williams, who began her career on local BBC stations before moving to Radio 4 where she spent seven years as a senior producer, said in the release:

“I’m thrilled to be coming home to Radio 4. I spent many happy years as a producer here and have enjoyed presenting programmes on the network too. The opportunity to host Saturday Live with Reverend Richard Coles is too good to miss. It’s a warm and witty way to start the weekend and I can’t wait to be a part of the new team.”

The Telegraph notes today: “The announcement follows months of speculation about Williams’s future. She was among a number of BBC staff who refused to relocate to Salford, citing family reasons for her decision to remain in London.”

BBC: Whitney Houston funeral coverage ‘reflected the significant interest’ in her death

The BBC has issued a statement in response to complaints about the length of its live coverage of Whitney Houston’s funeral service.

The broadcaster reports that it received 118 complaints about its live coverage of the 3 and a half-hour service, which appeared on the BBC News channel.

Live coverage of the service began at 17:00 GMT and continued until just before 20:30 GMT, with the BBC continuing to report on the story afterwards.

In a statement, published by the BBC, the broadcaster said the coverage “reflected the significant interest in her sudden death as well as acknowledging the impact she had as a global recording artist”.

It acknowledged that “some people felt there was too much coverage” but said BBC One’s teatime bulletin, radio bulletins and other services had still given viewers “the best access to the day’s other news stories”.

The Register: Salford ‘teething problems’ lead to BBC errors

BBC insiders have spoken out about “endemic problems” with technology at the new MediaCity facilities in Salford, which have led to a series of errors including one unfortunate captioning mistake that saw a child being labelled as a recovering alcoholic.

“Once a mistake has been entered into the computer, the director in the TV gallery can do nothing to stop it. The software won’t allow it,” a source told The Register.

Other problems include failing clocks and non-responsive robotic cameras. The problems have so far affected BBC North West programmes, but BBC Breakfast is also moving into the studio complex shortly.

The BBC response is: “It wasn’t a technical error but rather just a simple case of people getting used to the new systems. With the introduction of any new systems, teething problems are to be expected.”

Scotland on Sunday: Rangers bans BBC from press conference

Rangers football club, which filed for administration this afternoon, has banned the BBC from its press conferences as part of an ongoing row between the club and the broadcaster.

Scotland on Sunday reported yesterday that the BBC was banned from recording a post-match conference because of what the club described as “repeated difficulties” over its treatment by the broadcaster.

The paper said: “After the club’s 4-1 victory over Dunfermline Athletic, listeners to Radio Scotland’s Sportsound programme heard BBC reporter Chris McLaughlin state that a Rangers press officer had stopped him recording. A witness said: ‘He was asked to remove his microphone and the conference carried on.'”

BBC Editors’ Blog: Guidance on breaking news and Twitter

After Sky News’s crackdown on Twitter use – and specifically retweeting non-Sky journalists – was revealed last night, it’s the BBC’s turn to clarify its position.

In a post on the BBC editors’ blog today, social media editor Chris Hamilton says the corporation has distributed some revised breaking news guidance to correspondents, reporters and producers.

It says that, when they have some breaking news, an exclusive or any kind of urgent update on a story, they must get written copy into our newsroom system as quickly as possible, so that it can be seen and shared by everyone – both the news desks which deploy our staff and resources (like TV trucks) as well as television, radio and online production teams.

We’ve been clear that our first priority remains ensuring that important information reaches BBC colleagues, and thus all our audiences, as quickly as possible – and certainly not after it reaches Twitter.

Unions jointly submit pay claim for BBC staff

The National Union of Journalists, Bectu and Unite have jointly issued a pay claim for BBC staff for 2012 to 2013, which according to union statements, asks for a rise “of RPI plus two per cent, with a minimum increase of £1,000”.

The NUJ says this would apply to BBC staff in bands two to 11. In a statement the NUJ’s broadcasting organiser Sue Harris said they consider it “a fair claim”.

According to the unions the claim “also seeks the reinstatement of a previous right for staff to lodge pay appeals” and “encourages BBC management to agree to the inclusion of elected staff representatives on the Executive Remuneration Committee”.

Read more on the pay claim on the NUJ and Bectu websites.

Ten examples of games used to tell news stories

One of the sessions at news:rewired – media in motion will look at how newsgames and gaming mechanics are being used in journalism.

Shannon Perkins, editor of interactive technologies at Wired.com and who created Cutthroat Capitalism, a game where the player puts themselves in the position of a Somali pirate, will be coming over from the US to speak at news:rewired. In a Journalism.co.uk podcast he said a reader should “develop a deeper sense of the underlying themes of a story” by playing a game.

Another speaker presenting in the newsgames session at news:rewired is Bobby Schweizer, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of Newsgames: Journalism at Play. He will also be joining us from the US.

Here is a list of 10 newsgames to give an idea of how games can be used in storytelling.

1. The world at seven billion (BBC)

This BBC interactive, which uses gaming mechanics, is proof that newsgames go viral. The world at seven billion was the most shared and “liked” news story on Facebook of 2011 with 339,149 shares, comments and likes. It was also the most clicked story on Facebook this year and was the fourth most popular news story on Twitter in 2011 with 73,783 tweets.

2. Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi: whose line is it anyway? (Guardian)

A newsgame was also the second most popular news story on Facebook in 2011, with 219,023 shares, likes and comments. It is the Guardian quotes quiz where readers are asked to guess whether a line is a quote from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi or actor Charlie Sheen.

This one was “produced very quickly”, according to the Guardian, and is an idea that could inspire small news organisations without a budget for big game development.

3. Cutthroat Capitalism (Wired.com)

This newsgame was created by news:rewired speaker Shannon Perkins after reading an article in Wired Magazine. The player becomes a Somali pirate. The game states:

You are a pirate commander staked with $50,000 from local tribal leaders and other investors. Your job is to guide your pirate crew through raids in and around the Gulf of Aden, attack and capture a ship, and successfully negotiate a ransom.

4. Los 33 (Chilean miners) (Chilean design firm Root33)

This newsgame is based on the rescue of the Chilean miners trapped underground in 2010. According to Bobby Schweizer, who will be speaking at news:rewired, the game, which asks the player to rescue the miner, provides an insight into the slow process involved in rescuing each miner.

You perform the rescue 33 times if you want to finish the game – which is impossible really to complete. It’s trying to get across that concept that maybe you can’t explain in a written article.

When you see video clips edited together of each of the miners returning to the surface you have three to five seconds of each of their faces, you don’t get that real sense of how long it actually took. The game was able to express that in the way that other stories couldn’t.

5. How should I vote in the General Election? (Telegraph)

This is a game produced by the Telegraph. It asks users to answer a series of questions to find their values and concerns. The game then cross-checks responses with party pledges and the player is then told how they should be voting. This game received much attention as voters were often surprised by the results the game returned.

6. The budget calculator (most major news sites)

Perhaps the most widely used form of gaming mechanics used in news is the budget calculator. The viewer enters a salary, the fuel-type of their car, amount of alcohol units consumed per week and other details and then gets told how much better or worse off they will be based on the new budget.

This budget calculator from the BBC shows gaming mechanics in online news is nothing new – going back at least 10 years. Here are BBC examples from 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

7. Christmas on the high street: retail winners and losers (Guardian)

At the beginning of this year the Guardian produced an interactive based on the Monopoly board. By clicking on each retailer the player finds out how business faired last Christmas.

8. Obameter (PolitiFact)

PolitiFact also uses gaming mechanics, such as with its Obameter, which tracks the US President’s campaign promises, the Truth-O-Meter (which also comes in app form) to test politicians’ and the GOP Pledge-O-Meter to rank political promises.

Speaking at the World Editors Forum in October founder and editor of the site Bill Adair said he felt there was “a tremendous lack of imagination” in the news industry in how to take advantage of new publishing platforms.

It’s like we’ve been given a brand new canvas with this whole palette of colours and we’re only painting in grey. We need to bring all the other colours to this new canvas.

9. Dollars for Docs (ProPublica)

US investigative news site ProPublica regularly uses gaming mechanics in news stories, such as with Dollars for Docs which enables people to find out whether their health professional has received money from drugs companies. Speaking at the World Editors Forum Scott Klein, editor of news applications, told the conference that as well as adding context, a news app has the ability to personalise and place the user at the centre of the story and offer them the ability to see the impact on them. “It doesn’t just tell a story, it tells your story,” he said.

10.  Fix the deficit (New York Times)

Here’s a budget puzzle from the New York Times. The reader is asked to work out where to make spending cuts to balance the books and hopefully get a sense of the financial challenges, tough decisions and the size of the shortfall.

Want to find out more about newsgames? Book a ticket for news:rewired here.

Recommended reading, viewing and listening:

This is a cross-post from news:rewired.