ITV

Tag: Michael Lyons

  • BBC Trust publishes new promise to audiences

    MUMBAI: The BBC Trust has published its new Promise to UK Audiences, making clear how it will engage with the public to hear their views, understand their expectations, and inform them of decisions taken on their behalf.

    The Trust’s Promise to Audiences is a formal requirement of the Royal Charter and has been drawn up in consultation with the public, who were asked how and when they’d like to hear from the Trust and what information is of most interest to them.

    In addition to an open consultation – online and via a questionnaire distributed to all UK public libraries – the Trust met a range of representative bodies and carried out research amongst the public at large to develop a set of principles to underpin its engagement.

    While evidence shows that very few people want to be personally involved in giving their views about Trust activities, there is strong support for the principle of public involvement, with 73 per cent agreeing the public should have a say in the running of the BBC and 95 per cent wanting the Trust to report back on its activities. Trust decisions about value for money, and particularly those linked to new BBC services and significant changes to existing services were seen as the most important for public consultation and reporting.

    The consultation and research also demonstrated the Trust needs to work harder in raising awareness of its work, when it is consulting and, crucially, the impact the public makes on the Trust’s final decisions.

    BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons said, “Even though we’ve made real progress in giving a greater voice to the public and can demonstrate its influence, we know from the public’s feedback that we need to do more. The public want to know when they can get involved, but more importantly, they want to know what action has been taken by the Trust as a result, so they can assess whether it’s worth their time and effort.

    “We will continue to look for ways to reach and involve as many people as possible. For example, we are examining the option of trails on the BBC’s own networks – similar to those about digital switchover – to highlight the opportunity to give us your opinion, or to tell you what’s happened as a result.

    “The Trust will always have to use its judgement not least because our large and complex audience has many different views and preferences – but we will always explain the reasons for the decisions we make and how we used the information provided by the public in reaching our decisions.”

    The BBC Trust says that it needs to understand all of the various groups which make up the audience – 
    as such it has to carry out a wide range of public engagement. We will, however, be clear why it is carrying out this work.

    It has therefore, come up with a number of principles which should underpin any engagement activity.

    It wants to use methods of engagement which:

    1. are ones which the public believes will work and will use.

    2. will provide greater visibility for the work of the BBC Trust and, therefore, 
    encourage the public to participate.

    3. reach out to all members of the public, including those who might feel alienated from the BBC, while being resistant to capture by those with the loudest voices and vested interests.

    4. are practical, convenient and easy for those taking part.

    5. are open and transparent, including reporting the outcomes of our engagement.

     6. do not lose sight of the main aim of the BBC, which is to provide quality programmes and services.

  • BBC to be smaller but fitter in six years: DG Mark Thompson

    MUMBAI: UK pubcaster the BBC has unveiled a radical programme of reform which it claims will not only continue to deliver the highest quality content to audiences but will also make it available when and how they want it.

    Following approval by the BBC Trust, the six-year plan will deliver a smaller but fitter organisation. Every part of the BBC will be required to make efficiency savings, with every penny freed up reinvested in high quality, distinctive content and the way audiences consume it.

    The plan, ‘Delivering Creative Future’ rests on three fundamental propositions:

    A focus on quality – to provide fewer but better, more innovative and more distinctive programmes.

    A digital step change – to offer audiences programmes wherever and whenever they want them – from iPlayer to My BBC Radio, audiences will be able to find, play and share BBC content. To help deliver this ambition, largely separate TV, radio and web news operations will integrate into one of the world’s most advanced multimedia newsrooms.

    A smaller BBC – which will provide best value to audiences.

    BBC DG Mark Thompson told staff, “Media is transforming. Audiences are transforming. It would be easy to say that the sheer pace of this revolution is too fast for the BBC. That for us to do what other media players are doing – integrating newsrooms, mixing media, exploiting the same content aggressively across different platforms – is just too radical … but I think we can see both here and around the world the price you pay for taking what looks like the safe option.

    “I’ve devoted almost my whole working life to the BBC, much of that not as a suit but as a rank-and-file programme-maker. I love the BBC and what it stands for. I care too much to see it drift steadily into irrelevance.”

    Over the next six years, the BBC will focus particularly on enhancing quality output in journalism, drama, knowledge and comedy programming.

    The BBC claims that tough choices have been necessary, against the backdrop of the licence fee settlement, to deliver these plans. From the raft of detailed proposals, the headline efficiency savings and financial reprioritisation decisions approved by the Trust are:

    Meeting demanding efficiency targets of three per cent per year for the period.
    Making 10 per cent less originated programming in television by 2012/13, cutting lower impact programming to focus on fewer, higher quality, programmes.
    A radical reform of factual programme-making to ensure a sustainable in-house production base which will maintain this output at the heart of the BBC.
    In the Journalism group, which includes News, Nations and Regions, Global News and Sport, tackling duplication by bringing services together into a market-leading tri-media news production operation and promoting greater multi-media working.
    A decision, approved separately by the BBC Trust, to reduce the size of the property portfolio in west London by selling BBC Television Centre by the end the financial year 2012/13.
    A range of earlier proposals for new activities amounting to £1.5 billion over the next six years have been dropped, including four full new local radio stations, and there have been cuts to the budget for BBC Three (£10 million) and its new teen service.

    Overall the BBC will make approximately 1,800 redundancies by the end of the period. The BBC expects to close an estimated 2,500 positions between now and 2012/2013, with the areas of News and Factual production most affected. The impact on staff will be significantly lessened by fresh investment that will create new jobs and by natural staff turnover.

    Summarising what these plans would mean for the BBC by 2012/13, Thompson told staff that “there will be a smaller BBC, but one which packs a bigger punch because it is more focused on quality and the content that really makes a difference to audiences. And it will be a BBC which is fully prepared for digital”.

    BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said, “All of us at the BBC have constantly to remind ourselves that the guaranteed and privileged funding at our disposal is coming from people who have no choice but to pay it. This is the public’s BBC and the public pays for it with the licence fee. And those same people have made it absolutely clear that they want quality, value and something a bit special in return. After six months of very detailed work by the management and rigorous testing and challenge from the BBC Trust, we are confident that the plans we have approved today will safeguard the core values of the BBC at a time of radical and accelerating change in technology, markets and audience expectations.”

    The BBC Trust says that it is confident that the management’s strategy should safeguard the core values of the BBC at a time of radical and accelerating change in technology, markets and audience expectations. Inevitably, there are difficult choices to be made, heightened by a tight funding settlement. But at the heart of the strategic plan remains a firm commitment to the delivery of the BBC’s public purposes through high quality and distinctive creative content. It includes efficiency savings to free up resources for programming and measures to reprioritise spend to extract greater value for audiences.