Future of the BBC - Culture, Media and Sport Contents


3  BBC's performance

50. We have already touched upon the sequence of well-publicised incidents over the last few years which uncovered failings at the BBC and indicated a culture at the top of the Corporation that appeared out of step with serving the public interest and a public sector ethos. Coverage of these has undeniably dented the broadcaster's reputation. Yet some caution that the debate around the BBC is too often led by its detractors and that recent events and the ensuing criticism ought to be kept in context. We were reminded by several witnesses of the high esteem in which the BBC is held abroad for the quality of its content when compared to other broadcasters.[60] Gavyn Davies argued that the mistakes made were relatively small compared to the successes the BBC had achieved and that the debate was too often dominated by the BBC's competitors in the press, by its competitors in industry and by the political system.[61] He did not believe that the "silent majority" who pay the licence fee agreed with the critics.

51. It is without doubt the case that the BBC, over the last few years, has at times been mired in mistakes of its own making, and that it is essential, given its significant public funding and purposes, that it is held to account when failures occur. Yet many people will primarily judge the broadcaster on the quality of its content—on television, radio and online—its programmes, its journalism, on the value for money they consider it delivers and on the resulting societal and cultural contributions it makes.

Reach and audience appreciation

52. Since 2007, BBC services have stood up remarkably well to the fact that content is now available in much greater volumes from more sources, and that it can be consumed in more ways, than ever before. The internet and the emergence of new media and technology and digital giants, with colossal incomes at their disposal, have meant that the BBC and traditional media organisations have been facing ever-increasing competition while their conventional, once captive audiences have started to fragment. Evidence of the BBC's success has been its ability to face these challenges and evolve its services to satisfy new expectations, whilst continuing to produce significant amounts of public service programming and cater for specific demographics and niche tastes, such as Radio 3, 6 Music and the Asian Network's audiences. Similarly, the BBC provides services like BBC News 24 and children's channels which many appreciate even if they are not regular or direct users of these services.

53. In 2013/14, the overall weekly reach of BBC services rose to 96% of all UK adults, up from 93% in 2007. The BBC's contribution to digital switchover, through its role and investment in Freeview and other distribution strategies, played a significant part in digital television completely replacing analogue television in the UK at the end of 2012. BBC iPlayer was launched in 2007 and now receives over three billion programme catch-up requests a year.[62] Furthermore, BBC services have maintained high levels of appreciation among their audiences and users.[63] For instance, BBC One continues to reach more people than any other channel in the UK and was rated highest for quality out of 66 television channels in an international survey.[64] In a similar way, BBC local and regional radio services are valued by over nine million listeners who tune into them each week.[65] For last year, the BBC reported that each week:

·  audiences spent on average 18.5 hours viewing and listening to BBC programmes and content;

·  two-thirds of all adults listened to BBC radio; and

·  half of all adults used BBC Online (over 60% of "online" adults).

54. While the overall reach figure is commendable, it needs to be put in context. Viewers and listeners need to have watched or listened to a service only for 15 consecutive minutes, and BBC Online used for three minutes, in a week to count as reached. Although overall reach when calculated this way is high, the reach of some individual services is low, even to their target audiences. As part of our annual scrutiny of the BBC and appraisal of individual services, we and predecessor Committees have noted the position of BBC Three on several occasions and queried claims being made by the BBC Trust and Executive for the channel. In 2013/14, the channel's reach fell to 20.5%, meaning only one-fifth of the population watched the service for 15 consecutive minutes or more each week. Among its target audience of 16 to 34-year-olds its reach was 26.4%. Or, put another way, BBC Three reached less than three in 10 of the target audience to which it was launched a dozen years ago. Moreover, a proportion of its viewers watched solely for the imported US programmes and BBC One and Two repeats shown as part of its schedule, which in previous years has meant approximately only two in 10 watch BBC Three's originated UK content. BBC Four's reach is even lower than BBC Three's, with only 14% of the population on average watching the channel each week.[66]

Comments submitted as part of web consultation on the Student Room:

"I think that it's completely wrong for BBC 3 to become a purely online service, as a) not everyone has good internet, and b) watching live television should not be only available to older people. It's discriminatory."

"I think the reasoning [for moving BBC 3 online] is that young people are less likely to sit in front of the TV and instead stream things and use Netflix and the likes. I know that's definitely true with me. I couldn't tell you the last time I watched the TV, I just stream everything either off the Xbox or my laptop linked to the TV."

55. Since its launch in 2003, over £1 billion has been spent on BBC Three. In March 2014 Lord Hall announced plans, subject to the approval of the BBC Trust, to close BBC Three as a broadcast television channel in the autumn of 2015. This would result in the BBC saving over £50 million a year, £30 million of which would go into drama on BBC One, with BBC Three being "reinvented" as a channel online and on the iPlayer.

56. It was reported in January 2015 that two independent television production companies were planning to approach the Trust with a bid to buy the BBC Three channel with an offer likely to be in the region of £100 million which would preserve the service as a linear channel. However, there appeared to be a degree of scepticism as to the feasibility of the proposition. For instance, given that the spectrum used by BBC Three is a public asset, it would not be for the BBC to avail or profit from its sale.

57. It is difficult to see how BBC Three could be judged a success after more than a decade and expenditure of more than a billion pounds of licence payers' money, given the minority of the target audience reached. We believe it is right that the BBC Executive is considering alternative ways to reach BBC Three's target audience and recommend that all BBC services be evaluated in terms of most effective delivery and value for money.

58. The BBC Trust commissions and publishes research on licence fee payers' perceptions each year. According to its latest survey for 2013/14, only 47% of people thought that the BBC provided programmes that no other broadcaster would make, while 58% thought the BBC offered good value for money or else did not know. Looked at the other way, this indicates that four out of 10 people did not think the BBC offered good value for money. Nevertheless, compared with 2007 survey results, last year people overall rated the BBC higher for quality, trust and in value-for-money terms than they did six years ago.
How audiences rated the BBC
Scores out of 10 or as a percentage 2007/082013/14
Quality6.3 7.6
General impression 6.67.3
Trust5.9 6.5
Value for money 4.9 5.8
Fresh and new ideas 55%61%
Percentages
Provides high quality, independent journalism 67%66%
Good at representing my region 41%59%
Good at representing my ethnic group/culture 36%47%
Source: BBC Trust Annual Reports and Accounts

Provision of news and coverage of national events

59. Several witnesses have identified the BBC's provision of news, information and knowledge across its services as a core public service function. Last year 82% of UK adults consumed BBC News (network and original) across television, radio and online.[67] Others have pointed to the BBC's position as being the "go-to broadcaster" with capacity to cover national events and its position in bringing the country together as an aspect people closely associated with the Corporation. The BBC's Olympics' coverage was highly praised around the world and watched by over 90% of the population.[68] Lord Grade advocated the continuing importance of the BBC's role as an impartial provider of news, where its output is universally available.[69] Given the continuous changes in commercial broadcasting and the media more widely, he expected the relevance of the BBC's output as being likely to increase.

The World Service

60. The World Service's position as a reliable, respected foreign and English language news service continues at home and overseas; both the Foreign Affairs Committee and the House of Lords ad hoc Committee on Soft Power and UK influence have recognised the BBC's strength in promoting British values and the UK positively overseas. While the World Service's role remains vitally important, it is the case that states such as Russia and China are now investing far more in their global channels than the BBC.[70] Last year the BBC World Service had a global audience of 191 million, up from 181 million in 2007.[71] Even though its traditional radio audiences have declined in part owing to several shortwave signals being switched off, its now established foreign language television channels are growing. Nearly 60 million viewers watched either the BBC Arabic or Farsi television services on a weekly basis in 2013/14.

61. Several changes have occurred in the last few years. Since April 2014, the World Service stopped being funded through grant-in-aid by the Foreign Office and its costs are now met by the licence fee. The Service has left its old home at Bush House and co-located with the BBC News division in Broadcasting House, which is enabling savings to be made. A more recent change is that the new director of the World Service will combine this position with that of being the deputy director of BBC News and Current Affairs.

62. We are concerned that combining the role of the BBC deputy director of news with that of the director of the World Service will dilute the influence and the independent voice of the World Service within the BBC, as the Service will no longer have a leader dedicated solely to developing and representing its interests. Given its new funding and oversight arrangements, we fear the importance of the World Service could be diminished. The extent to which the World Service's needs will be met from within the BBC must be monitored very carefully in the new Parliament. At a time when countries like Russia and China are significantly increasing their investment in global media outlets, including services aimed at the UK, we believe that the World Service has an increasingly important role in what is a global information war.

Cultural and economic contribution

63. The UK's creative endeavours are exhibited domestically and more widely overseas through BBC content and its distribution and promotion by BBC Worldwide. The Arts Council described to us the BBC as an invaluable cultural asset to the UK which is an internationally recognised example of what British creativity and commitment can achieve.[72] Similarly, many understand that through its funding, the BBC provides a significant stream of venture capital to the UK's creative industries.[73] In 2013, in spending £2.4 billion on its PSB services across television, radio and online, the BBC was the single largest source of funding for original content (excluding sports) in the UK.[74] Last year, we considered the BBC's impact during our inquiry into Support for the creative industries.[75] We note that for every £1 of licence fee the BBC spent, it generated £2 of economic activity.[76]

Serving all audiences

64. As part of its public purposes, the BBC aims to make programmes which reflect the lives, interests and experiences of its audiences. According to the BBC Trust, last year 52% of UK adults believed the BBC performed well in representing their nation or region.[77] People were more positive about BBC drama and comedy's depiction of their lives in their region.[78] However, in one part of the UK, Northern Ireland Screen, a creative industries agency, found that despite BBC Northern Ireland's strong delivery of regional programming, Northern Ireland had been "grossly short-changed by the BBC over a quite a considerable period of time." They found there was almost no identification between the Northern Irish audience and the BBC's network production.[79]

Out of London strategy

65. In 2004, the BBC outlined a plan to move half of all its public service staff outside London by the end of 2016 and also to transfer several London-based departments to the North of England.[80] The rationale behind these proposals was that through moving people, resources and creative investment out of London it would be better able to reflect the life and experiences of the whole UK.[81] In addition, the move would deliver economic benefits to the North of England and realise financial benefits to the BBC. The BBC has now moved around 2,700 staff to BBC North,[82],[83] and has set up a new finance centre in Cardiff.[84] A National Audit Office value-for-money study was largely positive about the BBC's move to Salford. In light of this, the Committee of Public Accounts concluded that the BBC had met the challenge of moving several departments to its new regional centre in Salford "on time, within budget and without disruption to broadcast services".[85] Nevertheless, it found the scale of some of the allowances paid to staff to relocate to Salford had been difficult to justify. Following a visit, we were left impressed by what has been achieved in Salford at BBC North, but also by ITV and the other occupants who have moved to the Media City UK Development area.

66. While we were in Salford, Peter Salmon, Director of BBC North, told us the BBC planned to go further in collaborating with others across the North of England and that it was still "early days in a long term plan". According to City Broadcasting, a producer based in Manchester, there was considerable evidence that audiences in the North, in the North East particularly, were less well served by the BBC than other parts of the country.[86] Yet those we met believed the move of major BBC production departments to Salford had provided an opportunity to rebalance this but that there needed to be more BBC commissioning of independent productions both for television and radio from companies in the North. Northern Film and Media, based in Gateshead, recognised the BBC as being "instrumental in forging partnerships in the region with a range of organisations."[87]


TV programming spend by region as a % of eligible spend
2007 2013% of UK population
London64.7 47.513.13
Scotland3.3 10.98.31
Wales 2.7 6.84.81
Northern Ireland 0.4 2.22.85
Total Nations6.4 19.915.97
Midlands4.1 2.725.31
North of England10.2 17.323.48
South of England11.9 8.522.1
Multi-regional* 4.1
Total Regions26.2 32.670.89
Total Nations and Regions 32.652.5 86.86
Sources:

1. Spend percentages taken from BBC Annual Reports

* Covers programmes made outside London but which the BBC say cannot be attributed to any one region or nation.

2. The figures in this table were compiled by the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands.

3. Population percentages taken from ONS mid-year 2013 population estimates mapped to the BBC Nations and Regions by the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands.

67. The Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands has pointed out that a region that has lost out in the current Charter period is the Midlands.[88] Over the last six years the percentage of BBC's spend on television in the Nations and regions increased by 61%. Yet in the same period the percentage spent in the BBC's Midlands region (which includes the East of England) fell by 34%. By the end of 2012, hardly any television and radio were being made for the national networks from Birmingham, which Equity considered could cause lasting damage to the local economy and the creative industries in the West Midlands.[89] The Midlands region had the lowest operational spend by the BBC in England in actual terms, lower than that in Scotland and Wales, and only marginally higher than in Northern Ireland. While 25% of the licence fee comes from the Midlands region (its proportion of population), only 2.5% is spent in the region.[90] Although the Campaign has highlighted this distribution as being unfair, since the appointment of Lord Hall as Director General, they have perceived a change of direction and are more optimistic that BBC investment will return to the Midlands region.[91]

68. While we welcome the BBC's success in shifting spend out of London during the current Charter period through its move to Salford and through the concentration on "Centres of excellence", it is evident that some areas of the country have received a disproportionately small return of the licence fee which has meant they have missed out on economic activity. Although we accept the BBC cannot have a significant physical presence in all regions of the country, it must develop a more equitable commissioning and business strategy that fosters cultural variety and spreads its activity, as far as possible, across the country.

Diversity on and off screen

69. Over the last few years black audiences have been consistently less positive about the BBC compared to white and Asian audiences.[92] Last year, when asked specifically about how well the BBC represented their ethnic group, just 32% of black respondents agreed that the BBC was good at doing this. During the course of our inquiry we took evidence from Lenny Henry CBE, the actor and comedian, following his 2014 BAFTA lecture when he highlighted the under representation of black, Asian and minority ethic (BAME) people on screen and behind the scenes in the broadcasting industry. To rectify this deficit, Mr Henry has recommended that broadcasters might take exactly the same approach the BBC took to tackling the lack of production in Nations and regions, where it set production and spend targets, introducing a similar structural solution by ring-fencing money specifically for BAME productions.

70. According to Creative Skillset, since 2009 the total number of BAME people in the television industry has fallen by 2,000 while the industry as a whole has grown by over 4,000. Mr Henry has identified several factors involved in BAME under-representation:

·  The demise of ITV's regional commitments which have reduced local opportunities for employment and portrayal.

·  The increased casualisation of the industry, which poses challenges to all working class communities, including BAME.

·  The near total absence of BAMEs in the key commissioning and controller roles, which decide what gets made, who writes it and who presents it.

·  Ofcom's 2005 decision to allow ITV, C4 and others to keep their ethnic monitoring information confidential.

·  The lack of BAME representation at the top of the industry, with only one of the 61 Board members in the UK broadcasting industry having a BAME background.[93]

71. Among the BBC Executive's priorities for 2014/15 are aims to increase access to the BBC for those from different social and ethnic diverse backgrounds and to take measures to increase the retention and development of disabled and BAME staff.[94] In June 2014, Lord Hall announced a plan to improve on and off air BAME representation at the BBC,[95] including: a leadership development programme for six talented people from BAME backgrounds; a £2.1million diversity creative talent fund, and more training internships alongside the BBC's existing apprenticeships. In spite of Lord Hall's commitments, Mr Henry told us there was "initiative fatigue" among BAME people in the industry.[96] He said that the BBC alone, in the last 15 years had run 29 initiatives to increase ethnic diversity and yet BAME representation had actually gone down. Patrick Younge, former Chief Creative Officer at the BBC, told us that initiatives will "ameliorate the pain or help deal with some of the symptoms" but he saw a structural problem that needed a more structural solution.[97] As we have noted above, the BBC's adoption of a structural mechanism to increase production in the Nations and regions has had success albeit not across all parts of the country.

72. Ethnicity is only one of the barriers to working in the industry: gender, social background and disability are also factors that often prevent access to openings and work for many writers, actors and others who work off screen.[98] Low pay and high costs of living, particularly in London, can act as a barrier to gaining experience and there is a perception that the whole structure of the industry is biased towards a self-perpetuating, middle class urban elite rather than being open to all on the basis of their talent. Creative Skillset report that around two-fifths of the television workforce are being forced to work unpaid in order to get into the industry.[99] We believe it is crucial for the BBC and other broadcasters to broaden the range of voices and backgrounds at commissioning level as well as on screen and in other areas of broadcasting.

Children's programming

73. A key PSB genre is children's programming. The BBC has produced and broadcast programmes for children since the 1930s and, in 2002, launched two designated children's channels, CBBC and CBeebies. Following analogue switch-off at the end of 2012, the BBC ended the tradition of broadcasting children's programmes on BBC One, using only these dedicated services for that content.

74. Ofcom notes that first-run UK children's originations on PSB channels declined by 28% between 2008 and 2013. This it attributed in a large part to the reduction in output by ITV and Channel 5.[100] Ofcom also reports that children are watching less television than they did in 2008, when the last PSB review was conducted, with a sharp drop in viewing by older children (10-15 years). As an alternative, older children appear to be watching short online video clips on sites such as YouTube.

75. According to the Children's Media Foundation, the BBC is "the only player in town for commissioning content for kids".[101] Similarly, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (Pact) were concerned that the BBC had emerged as the last dominant investor and buyer of children's programming over recent years, with ITV and Channel 4 playing a noticeably lesser role in this space.[102] Nevertheless, the Commercial Broadcasters Association reported that its members' children's channels had increased their investment in UK children's content by 60%, to nearly £30 million.[103]

76. Overall, Ofcom reports that the proportion of children's content children are watching is rising, primarily due to increased viewing to non-PSB commercial children's channels.[104] However, CBBC and CBeebies still account for about a third of children's viewing of children's programmes in 2013.

77. While conceding that younger teenagers are one of the most difficult audiences to provide for with specific programming, the Children's Media Foundation claims that BBC output has little of relevance to the 10+ audience and that Radio 1 is aimed at the 15+ audience.[105] The Foundation attributes this deficit in part to the BBC not having sufficient funding to cater for this audience but also to Channel 4 falling short on its promise to this group. Similarly, it has been accepted by Ofcom, in its relicensing of Channels 3 and 5, that there will be no requirement for the commercial PSBs to produce content for children. Without the BBC's supply of UK-originated content and programmes for children, many younger people would have to rely largely on a diet of acquired US television programmes, as the BBC is pretty much by itself in the provision of UK-originated children's output. This content plays a vital part of children's early learning experience and understanding of their cultural identity. Children's content must remain a core and priority PSB genre for the BBC beyond 2016. The BBC will need to be able to continue to innovate and develop new media and distribution strategies for children as the audience for traditional linear television programmes continues to decline over the next few years. We commend the BBC for the quality and provision of its content for children over the current Charter period.

Stewardship of the licence fee

78. The BBC's success in holding a 42% share of television and radio consumption in the face of the massive proliferation of alternative television and radio outlets is to be commended, despite the obvious advantages given to it to attract audiences through gifted UK-wide digital spectrum and significant levels of public funding for the creation of high-quality original content. Nonetheless, this success has been overshadowed at times by its stewardship of the licence fee. As Equity put it to us, the public perception of the BBC could be that of an organisation that is at times incompetent and at other times complacent, but despite the real difficulties it has had to face (not least a significant real-terms cut in its licence fee), it has continued to produce good-quality programmes.[106] During the Charter period, the BBC's financial propriety has been called into question on several occasions. For instance, significant losses occurred owing to the mismanagement of a major IT project, the Digital Media Initiative, and (within its commercial arm) as a result of a misguided acquisition of the Lonely Planet publishing business. Furthermore, the pay of its senior executives and managers, and their number, and the reward paid to its top talent and performers became at odds with the ethos of a publicly-funded organisation. After directions from the BBC Trust, the Executive has reduced the costs of both but there still remain too many executives with extremely high levels of pay, pensions and entitlements.

79. The BBC's drive to reduce its senior manager cadre exposed a further disregard by the BBC of its status as a public body. Severance pay and terms made to many of its senior managers were extremely high and some beyond the contractual terms that should have applied. Since November 2010, the BBC has made at least 10 severance payments to senior managers, each worth more than £250,000. The highest payment was £949,000 to the BBC's former Deputy Director General, Mark Byford, and George Entwistle received £450,000 payment despite the criticism of his handling of the Savile affair and only 54 days as a director general. In its resulting review of BBC's severance payments, the NAO observed that although the savings that the BBC had made by reducing senior manager numbers had exceeded the cost of severance payments, the BBC had breached its own policies on severance too often without good reason, which had resulted in payments that had not served the best interests of licence fee payers.[107]

Savings and efficiency

80. In 2010, as part of a licence fee settlement agreed between the Government and the BBC behind closed doors and without any public or parliamentary consultation, the level of the licence fee was frozen for six years and the BBC agreed to take on approximately £500 million per annum[108] of new funding responsibilities during this period, including for the World Service, S4C, BBC Monitoring, and for distribution of local TV and a contribution to the roll-out of rural broadband. To fulfil its commitment under the 2010 settlement, the then Director General, Mark Thompson, set a savings target of 20% under an efficiency programme called Delivering Quality First[109] (DQF), which followed a series of previous savings programmes stretching back to the early 1990s. This was forecast to deliver savings of £700 million a year by 2016/17 and a loss of about 2,000 posts across the BBC.[110]

81. Since 2007, the BBC has stated that £1.1 billion of cumulative annual savings have been made out of its controllable costs.[111] These savings are intended to absorb inflationary costs, and to cover its new funding obligations. According to the BBC, so far 70% of its savings achieved have been through productivity gains and only 30% have been cuts expected to have an impact on audiences' appreciation or usage of BBC services. The NAO is auditing the BBC's progress in reducing its costs; it will report its findings shortly. The BBC needs to make over £1.5 billion of cumulative savings over the entire Charter period but has said the proportion of DQF savings made in the latter part of programme which are expected to impact on BBC output or quality of services will rise to 50 per cent. As Anne Bulford, BBC's Managing Director of Finance and Operations, put it:

    It's really important that everyone gets that the efficiency programme is not something you can just keep on doing. It would be a worry if people thought you could sell Television Centre two or three times.[112]

82. The BBC has highlighted to us that over the last 20 years, the licence fee has stayed almost flat in real terms, but the BBC had expanded its offering, suggesting greater value for money and organisational efficiency.[113] David Elstein has, however, pointed out that the BBC's income has risen by 50% in those 20 years owing to the increase in the number of households paying the licence fee.[114]

83. The BBC's achievement of cumulative savings of £1.1 billion since 2007 is commendable given the relatively small negative impact they have had on audiences' appreciation and on reach of its services. Whilst efficiencies of this magnitude may have been challenging for them to accomplish, especially on the back of earlier initiatives, the fact that the BBC achieved the savings demonstrates it was right that the Corporation faced a tight spending settlement in 2010, notwithstanding the criticisms of the way that settlement was conducted.

84. The BBC still has £400 million of savings to make by 2017. Given that the likely opportunities for further productivity gains must be diminishing, the BBC will need to be bold and upfront in presenting the options for cuts to services or output which would allow it to stay on track for the savings target, while still meeting its public purposes and audience expectations.

85. We believe that the BBC has done well in the current Charter period, in light of increased choice and competition, in terms of overall reach and audience consumption and appreciation, but it has also had a few notable failures and underperformance in certain areas which the BBC has not always been ready to acknowledge until well after the fact. Over the course of the Charter period, in their annual reports, in our view, the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive have often tended to highlight favourable performance figures over the less favourable, burying the latter in lengthy narratives, or supplementary documents online, which has not facilitated an easy scrutiny of where the BBC had been doing well and where it had been less successful. In the remaining part of the current Charter, the BBC should aim to be a better, more transparent, self-critic. It should not be deterred from summarising and publishing the least favourable performance figures alongside those where it is doing well. We recommend that the independent panel, and the Charter Review process itself, must appraise the BBC's current performance measures and manner of reporting in order to determine whether changes should be made in the future to ensure the BBC presents a more balanced picture of its results.


60   Pact (FBB0080), para 4.2 Back

61   Q83 Back

62   BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14, page 63 Back

63   Last year audiences rated BBC's network channels between 81.5 to 85.1 where scores were an aggregate of how people rated individual programmes, expressed as a number out of 100. On the same basis, BBC network radio stations scored between 71.3 and 83.8; BBC radio stations in the Nations between 78.1 and 83.8; and BBC Online had an audience appreciation score of 78.5.  Back

64   Public and Private Broadcasters across the World-The Race to the Top, 3 December 2013 Back

65   RAJAR Q4 2013 Back

66   BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14, page 67 Back

67   BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14, page 62 Back

68   See ITV (FBB0066), para 7; Professor Phil Redmond (FBB0076), para 39; NUJ (FBB0079), para 15 Back

69   Q130 Back

70   Professor Beckett (FBB0022), para 1.3 Back

71   BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14, page 70 Back

72   Arts Council England (FBB0094), para 2.1 Back

73   Q18 Back

74   Enders Analysis (FBB0098)  Back

75   Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Third Report of Session 2013-14, Supporting the creative economy, HC 674 Back

76   BBC Trust (FBB0096), para 9 Back

77   Purpose Remit Survey Report 2013/14, page 28 Back

78   Ibid, page 31 Back

79   Q461 Back

80   Building Public Value-Renewing the BBC for a digital world, page 18 Back

81   Ibid, page 98 Back

82   See www.mediacityuk.co.uk/occupiers/bbc  Back

83   The BBC has reported that 37% of the staff at BBC North relocated from London, 29% came from its old centre in Manchester and 34% were new staff. Back

84   Driving efficiency at the BBC, To deliver quality content for the licence fee payer, page 24 Back

85   Committee of Public Accounts, Twentieth Report of 2013-14, The BBC's move to Salford, HC293 Back

86   City Broadcasting (FBB0073)  Back

87   Northern Film & Media Limited (FBB0048), para 2 Back

88   Ideas for the BBC in the Midlands, Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands, December 2014 Back

89   Equity (FBB0038), para 25 Back

90   Q481 Back

91   Ideas for the BBC in the Midlands, Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands, December 2014  Back

92   For example, see Purpose Remit Survey UK report Winter 2012-2013, NatCen Social Research, page 4 Back

93   Lenny Henry, Marcus Ryder and Patrick Younge (FBB0129)  Back

94   The BBC plans to increase BAME representation at a senior level from the rate of 8.3% in 2014 to 15% by 2020. Back

95   BBC plan to increase on-air BAME portrayal from 10.4% to 15% by 2017 Back

96   Q423 Back

97   Q424 Back

98   Creative Skillset note that with just 5.4% from a BAME background, 36% women and 1% disabled the creative industries are well below the national employment averages. Back

99   Creative Skillset (FBB0084), para 2.14 Back

100   Ofcom-Public Service Content in a Connected Society: Ofcom's third review of public service broadcasting-Consultation, 15 December 2014 Back

101   Q401 Back

102   Pact (FBB0080), para 1.7  Back

103   Commercial Broadcasters Association (FBB0072), para 3.4 Back

104   Ofcom-Public Service Content in a Connected Society: Ofcom's third review of public service broadcasting-Consultation, 15 December 2014 Back

105   Q401 Back

106   Q472 (Christine Payne)  Back

107   Severance payments and wider benefits for senior BBC managers, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, presented to the BBC Trust Finance Committee, 20 June 2013, para 17 Back

108   See: Driving Efficiency at the BBC, to deliver quality content for the Licence Fee payer, page 9. BBC World Service costs taken on from April 2014. Back

109   Delivery Quality First, October 2011 Back

110   Ibid, page 11 Back

111   The BBC has pointed out that £566 million of costs met through the licence fee are not under its control. These include costs of rural broadband rollout, local TV, its pension deficit reduction payment, and licence fee collection costs. See: Driving efficiency at the BBC, to deliver quality content for the licence fee payer, page 12. Back

112   See: 'BBC finance chief Anne Bulford: There are £400m in savings still to go', The Telegraph, 22 November 2014 Back

113   BBC (FBB0097), para 25 Back

114   Q8 (David Elstein) Back


 
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© Parliamentary copyright 2015
Prepared 25 February 2015