They wasted millions: Now that's bad news

I WORKED for the BBC for 34 years and loved it. But it has been surrendered to the paper pushers - consultants, strategists, analysts and maharajas of mumbo jumbo - at a cost perhaps of pounds 22 million.

And whose money was that? The licence payers! I imagine they feel baffled and angry by this waste. Consultants and strategists are not worth one penny of the pounds 22 million. I have no idea what they do. They seem a total waste of time. All that cash should go into programmes.

There have always been some bad programmes but Birt's BBC - the bureaucrats and the bosses - lost the plot. The money has been wasted on bureaucracy, so it is not there to put into saving sport and making quality programmes.

I still think the BBC is good value for money and you don't have to watch trashy ads. Sky News costs twice as much.

For all its faults I love it still. It remains a force for truth and freedom in the world. Not all its programmes are execrable. Some are first class and will remain so, with or without Des Lynam.

A world-class tradition of service and quality is hard to root out in the term of office of a single Director General.

I never knew a time when the BBC was not under threat. That is just business as usual for its beleaguered staff. The difference now is that the enemy is within. Sir John Birt may have saved it from critics and enemies in successive governments. But he holed it below the waterline through his own reforms.

I knew something was amiss as soon as he took over. Lavishly- produced internal reports and brochures started cascading on to my desk, proclaiming the virtues of the new management.

This was a Corporation whose business was communication, but these documents were written in such obscure terms - we called it "Birtspeak" - that not one was understandable.

I never was able to read their codes and after five years I left.

Successive Director Generals from Sir John Reith onwards have presided over the BBC empire from their HQ in Broadcasting House, a great building that looks like the prow of the mighty flagship it once was. But they didn't do it in isolation.

THE place had a buzz to it. Programmes were being made all around them - everything from Today to Desert Island Discs. Not any more.

Under Sir John Birt the programme makers didn't just move out, they were thrown out. Broadcasting House today has all the rush and bustle of a mortuary.

The BBC in recent years has lost sight of its core business - making programmes that people can watch and hear. They can be programmes that inform or programmes that entertain. They can be sport or comedy. They can be news, documentaries or shipping forecasts warning of squalls on Dogger Bank. That is what the BBC is for. Birt, however, was beguiled by the Aladdin's Cave of the digital revolution, offering multitudes of programmes and new technologies to an audience that might or might not be interested in them. If they are, I see noharm in the extra pounds 24 licence fee.That's a decision for people to make in the same way they pay for Mr Murdoch's Sky.

I also think it odd that MPs do not pay for TV licences in the Commons. I don't think it stands up to say there is a difference between work and leisure.

If MPs are using television to watch networks I guess we should pay a licence. I am sure TV critics pay a licence. MPs are just like everyone else.

The BBC's resources are limited and they always will be. They are especially limited at a time when the contracts for major sporting events have rocketed to a price where the national broadcaster cannot afford them.

But the BBC could have saved the cricket for only pounds 4 million more than it was willing to pay.

HOW then could it justify celebrating its 75th birthday by squandering pounds 30 million on a virtually cable news channel, News 24.

A further effect of this wasteful enterprise is to dilute the BBC's journalism. Its rightly- respected news department has been suffering from gigantism. Birt's Frankenstein monster has expanded out of control.

The BBC covered most of the Bosnian war with two correspondents - one for radio, one for television. I know - I was one. At the end of the Kosovo campaign it had 19. They competed with each other and wasted money that could have gone elsewhere.

One of the things Birt did was introduce a system where more than 100 correspondents had the right to appear on the Nine O'Clock news, the flagship. Then they had a review which told them that viewers like a small team they can relate to.

I am not among those who argue that there was a golden age of television. Broadcasting will always be a mix of the good, the adequate and the downright indifferent.

Fortunately, the BBC has appointed as its new Director General Greg Dyke, who has the popular touch and the ability to communicate. He understands the importance of putting the programmes first.

I confess that I criticised his appointment, but that was only because of his donations to the Labour Party. I always thought him the best man for the job.

Mr Dyke naturally does not like to be remembered as the only man who hired a rat to save a sinking ship. The rat was Roland and the ship was TV-am.

The BBC needs more than a rat to save it. It needs to return to its core business and pay less attention to digital sideshows and liabilities like News 24.

It would also help if the retiring captain were to walk the plank while his rickety ship is still afloat. Then the new man could take over. The BBC needs him now.

Copyright 1999 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.