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- The Guardian, Monday 17 January 2000
Last Monday, eight senior BBC News executives arrived at work to find their posts axed. Their jobs, on salaries of £60,000 upwards, involved overseeing everything from Newsnight to editing News 24 and BBC World.
Like snowdrops in January, the cuts - which a surly BBC News PR department tried to hush up - were the first sign to the outside world of a Dykeist BBC spring. "Delayering", with the immense savings it implies, has arrived. "All hell is about to break loose," reports a senior figure who expects Greg Dyke's reorganisation, when unveiled in March or April, to be very radical.
But there is a real piquancy to this U-turn. When shown the new "organisation chart" for BBC News, this was the reaction of one of the redundant managers. "It was curiously familiar. With the exception of News 24 and BBC World, which weren't invented then, it was precisely back to the way things were run in the 1980s, before John Birt was recruited to head up BBC journalism."
Even those made redundant see the logic of what is taking place. "My personal view is that this is excellent news," said another person affected."This is precisely what we fought for in 1997." This refers to one of the most explosive rows to rock BBC News in the 90s. In September '97, BBC News chief executive Tony Hall and Richard Clemmow, then head of TV news sprang a plan to downgrade programme editors in charge of programmes and dedicated teams, adding new "super editors".
The result was fury. Public resistance from presenters, including Jeremy Paxman, John Humphrys, James Naughtie and Anna Ford, combined with editors including the then Today editor Jon Barton, Kevin Marsh (The World at One) and Peter Horrocks (Newsnight), propelled it on to the front pages. After two days the chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, intervened and had a meeting with Birt and Hall. Programme editors remained intact, but in the resulting fudge, the extra tier of executives was installed as well.
As buffers between programme editors and the top echelon, it was unclear what taxing administrative duties some of the new executives would do all day. "Play computer games. Fill in forms, help out in staffing crises," one insider suggests. Now that the BBC has decided to get rid of the extra tier, there is a sadness among many at the corporation that the people who took the new jobs are staring at an uncertain future. Eight of them will have to apply for the three posts that remain.
"These are people with typically 15 to 20 years' experience under their belt," said the editor of a high-profile news programme. "Some are highly respected. My relief that this is right is combined with wondering what sort of system it is which has promoted creative, experienced people, often despite their protests, to such 'non-jobs' - only so that they can be dispensed with like this?"
All of which poses an obvious question: how often can Hall - a civilised, clever man but one seen as a Birtist reformist who has failed to defend his staff against cuts - perform such reversals in policy without losing his credibility? A very senior BBC figure says bluntly: "The problem has been that Tony is more Birtist than Birt. There will be no celebration about Birt's departure here while he remains."
Hall's critics say the latest flip-flop completes his hat-trick. "Bi-medialism" has been junked with the recent creation of radio and TV heads. Attempts to impose an internal market between a monopoly supplier, BBC News, and News 24 and BBC World are also thrown out. Sources say that there is also a marked hostility towards BBC News management in almost every radio and TV news programme, for the insensitive way budgets have been cut by annual slices.
A senior figure on Newsnight says: "We certainly can't do the foreign features we used to. Newsnight has become a lesser programme. You can't keep taking money out of programmes. It has become drastic, serious." The decision to create a flatter structure at a stroke actually stems from the promotion of Roger Mosey, the ex-controller of Radio 5 Live, to head of TV news. He spearheaded the recognition that news programmes are best produced by small groups.
Too personable to be feared as the ruthless operator he is, Mosey - identified by some insiders as director-general material - waded into battle this week by stressing his belief in that classic mix: editors with control and strong presenters. "I want people to take imaginative decisions, enforced by BBC values," he said. Not, then, imposed deci sions, sullenly resented. "We've got some great editors here," Mosey said. "I don't want to suffocate editors under a bureaucratic structure where they feel unable to take decisions. Editors edit. That's the whole point of it. I want editors to feel free to innovate. What makes great programmes? The answer is great editors and great presenters."
Hall, the runner-up to succeed Birt, has been applauded by many for his efforts launching News 24 and overseeing news online. He denies that any of the changes amount to a U-turn. He explains that the cut in managers will be "simplifying the structure, so it's easier to understand and brings it closer to the people doing the programmes day by day. Less management, but, I hope, management that is visible."
The bi-media structure, he now says, was "a way of creating one organisation", by bringing radio news staff then based in Broadcasting House together with news teams in TV Centre. "We had split sites at the time, one structure eased people across. Once on the new site, we then asked how to organise ourselves. We asked the staff." When the staff gave the answers, Hall says, he responded.
Both Hall and Richard Sambrook stress that BBC News is not turning the clock back. The basic news-gathering machine, along with current affairs, business and political programmes, remain bi-media, with correspondents increasingly operating in a multi-media world, including servicing the successful online sites.
And the despised annual savings targets? Hall is hoping this coming year to set "differential targets". Newsnight is thought to be a Mosey priority. Asked if he realises that many of his staff simply wonder whether he's leaving, Hall appears deeply wounded. "Absolutely not. I've now got a fantastic team around me. No one has said that to me. It's utter rubbish."
