Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Xmas message

James Harding makes a good speech, and most BBC News teams today will have been boosted by his commitments to original journalism, increased diversity, innovation and a nicer place to work. But will he have the money to do it ?

He's announced the creation of the post of News Editor at Broadcasting House, with two deputies - one to patrol planning, and another to gee up weekends. This sounds like the command and control system of daily newspapers, not a broadcast and online news federation of 8,000.

He wants two new on-air "Editor" posts to cover health and education. He's setting up a News Impact Fund (no amount specified) to be run by new Newsgathering boss Jonathan Munro. He's setting up a new department, to be called Newslabs. And, in a move which will have many of the 8,000 checking dates, he's set up a real conundrum for HR teams and department bosses - "We will set new timescales on job tenure, so that a junior journalist can request a move after three years and an editor would be expected to move after six years and certainly after eight". I can't begin to cost the interdepartmental horse-trading meetings that this will require.

So far, Harding has created at least six new posts and cut none. There is still £22m to find from News to meet its Delivering Quality First targets. And he'll have to cough up a share of the additional £100m sought by the DG to fund his ideas and projects. Other divisions will want to make sure that happens - it could double Harding's target, though he might win back some for re-investment. And Harding says he's coming back in "the second half" of next year with his cuts plan; slower to carve than create.

The appointment of Sir Howard Stringer, ex-CBS and Sony boss, to sort out the transfer of World Service from Government grant-in-aid to licence fee funding in April 2014 suggests the internal team need some help and muscle to deal with the intellectual and financial conundrums there.

In a wide ranging speech, you try to give everyone a mention. Couldn't find Five Live.  Found 13 uses of deliver/delivering.

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