John Myers Report
Follow @mediaukdiscussJohn Myers’ report on Radio 1, Radio 2, 1Xtra and 6 Music was published today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio/2011/06/johnmyersreviewbbcradio.html
The purpose of the report was to examine whether those stations could be run more efficiently without sacrificing quality. It’s interesting to note that Myers does not believe that “appeasing commercial radio” should be the primary motive for change within the BBC. “The more compelling reason must be that a modern BBC aims to deliver its remit by constantly reviewing its operations and seeking out value for money, through working smarter and collectively. This review is part of that process and just one aspect of good management for the organisation.”
The report’s main recommendations are:
4.1 Explore improving coordination of the popular music network radio stations (Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 Music) through a common operating model, delivering:
• Significant reduction of overheads
• Slimmed down management structure
• Removal of all mirrored departments within each network
• Reduced recharges from News
• Operational efficiencies
• Sharing of expertise at all levels In my judgement, this would best be achieved through co-‐location in a single building
4.2 Examine the advantages of operating under a single tier management structure across all four popular music networks.
4.3 Ask the network controllers to define the term ‘quality’ to their respective staff, to ensure costs are managed within an agreed framework.
4.4 Review the model and the level of recharges across each network to improve simplicity and effectiveness.
4.5 Explore the possibility of Newsbeat becoming the central newsroom for all four popular music networks within its current staffing levels and with independent network readers approved by each controller.
4.6 Re-plan the operational needs of studio managers within Radio 2. Ask presenters to “self-op” whenever possible, unless there are specific production issues, or they are only occasional presenters or complicated programming exists.
4.7 Continue to reduce the compliance burden appropriately. Wherever possible return the decision-‐making process back to the producer, especially for obviously low risk programming.
The one statistic that seems to have caused a mass raising of eyebrows has been that Radio 1’s ‘Newsbeat’ employs 52 full time staff, in addition to its own technical and production personnel. Really? A couple of years ago I expressed similar surprise that ‘Today’ on Radio 4 had a team of 55 people – http://pauleaston.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-many-people-does-it-take.html
Meanwhile Radio 2 has a team of announcers who read the news on the hour (outside of breakfast) but do not write any of the news material themselves. Instead this is written for them by the BBC Newsroom and they have little else to to do until the next hour’s bulletin.
The report also claims that 6 Music has 5 people who read the news on the network but don’t write it. I am reliably informed that, in fact, there are 4 people who both write and read the news.
On several occasions Myers suggests that it would be a good exercise to get the Independent Sector to provide a comparison metric for shows such as Friday Night Is Music Night. i.e. could the same programme be made cheaper without losing its existing high production values?
He also recommends that more of Radio 2’s non-daytime programmes should be live as this would save hours of complicance listening before transmission. Radio 1, with more live programming, is less costly and less time-consuming as a result.
As much as I consume and enjoy a great deal of the BBC’s radio and TV output during a typical week – and, as a result, personally consider the licence fee to represent good value for money on the whole – I do feel that it is important to ensure that that money is being spent wisely and would prefer that as much as possible of it is invested in programme-making and not on propping-up countless tiers of management.
I notice UTV, owners of talkSPORT, who have recently locked horns with 5 Live over whether the BBC network is still working within its service remit, have already called for an investigation into 5 Live’s budgets. Personally I think the time has now come, if not already overdue, for a similar Myers-type exercise with both Radio 4 and 5 Live.
After all, in the current economic climate we are all having to ‘tighten our belts’ and look at ways to be more economical so I fail to see why the BBC should be immune from that.
This is a much more moderate report than I had expected.
The Newsbeat 55 sounds like a lot of people, but for a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week operation across Radio 1 and 1 Xtra it could be worse. The recommendation for the Newsbeat team to take on responsibility for the news on 6music and Radio 2 could be read as an endorsement of their strength.
Time has to be running out for the Radio 2 newsreaders, and to my ears they sound anachronistic within the station’s output. The mantra is that the news should be part of the programme, but more often than not it’s like stepping back in time after the news jingle rolls.
As for the use of studio managers there’s a need for balance. Maybe for Jeremy Vine and Simon Mayo on Friday evening there’s a need for it with all the calls to handle, but most of the shows should be self-opped. SMs shouldn’t be used if the presenter can’t or won’t drive the desk; get the producer to do it instead.
If the weekend stars don’t want to work at the weekend then hire presenters who will, and make the programmes live. That’s easy to fix.
I’d agree with your proposal for a similar report into the speech networks and as for the BBC having to tighten their belts, well there’s no doubt that’s going to happen but at the moment the Beeb seems unable to decide where to make the cuts.
I didn’t know there was a lot of ‘tech-opping’ at Radio 2. I remember seeing Jimmy Young, and that seemed to be ‘half self op’ with him sat at a desk, and another desk in the production studio organising contributors etc. But Brian Matthew, Ken Bruce were all at the controls them selves.
I find it fascinating that anyone would WANT to be driven. I feel totally out of control even at OB’s, and I HATE IT.
Seems like some fair comments here.
Going from Commercial to BBC (for a short spell) and then back to commercial, I was astonished by the way that things worked. Slow and staff intensive. I hope there’s no redundancies! Hopefully it’s about remodeling up and freeing nmore creativity… if done right. But I have the feeling it will mean MORE job losses in the BBC. I think it’s sad that the BBC didn’t start thinking a bit differently 20 years ago.
I did that too. ILR and BBC radio – completely different animals, each with their own faults and virtues…. the trick is to simply take the positives on-board from both :-)
And THEN make everyone redundant? ;-)
The main R2 presenters are all self-op – although there is also a Tech Op/Studio Manager next door keeping an eye on the technical side of things. In the past they would also play items – speech packages, music sessions etc. – off tape. The presenters who don’t self-op tend to be among those who do specialist shows.
I’ve done music-based radio both self-op and TO-driven and I agree I prefer to be in charge, but I also accept that there are some people who may be good communicators and connect well with their listeners but just don’t feel comfortable when it comes to working the equipment.
More thoughts on self-op at http://pauleaston.blogspot.com/2010/07/push-button.html
Not forgetting the SM’s that actually drive the bulletins as well.
WHAT? They don’t self-op? Bloody hell.
I get that impression, Simon. To those of us with a purely commercial background, the way things work at the BBC must be quite astonishing. If a commercial group ran a CHR and AC station in the same town or adjoining towns and were ran from the same building, the management, sales/news/programming personell and maybe even jocks would be shared between the two licenses. You’d probably even have jocks on one station live, automating shows for the other station. In any case the backbone/backroom functions would be shared. The BBC does seem grossly inefficient and could deliver so much more value for money… probably without actually having to close stations as has been on the table.
The listener only cares about one thing, and that’s if what comes out of the speakers SOUNDS good.
I remember when Lincs made a few cutbacks recently, a leaked email onto DS from Michael Betton said the group and his team “should be judged on what is broadcast, than how the broadcast is put together.”
Lincs and I have our differences but that’s one of the truest things I’ve heard about making radio.
Only the 15 minute Newsbeat programmes are tech-opped. Also, although I haven’t been involved with it recently, in my experience the short hourly bulletins are fairly regularly made just by one person, especially at breakfast.
Am I right in thinking that Radio 1 started having seperate news readers after it went 24 hour? I remember a time when the news readers were shared between the two networks of R1 and R2 as they had there news at each end of the half hour. I was interested in the comment that some feel that the Radio 2 news readers sound ‘disconnected’ from the rest of the output. Is this another indication at the obsession with targeting a ‘younger’ audience at the expense of those more mature listeners who actually like and desire to have the news read in a more restrained and paced way without a continuous backdrop of music underneath as seems to now be the case on Radio 1 and 1Xtra, and 6 Music for that matter.
This week’s ‘Radio Talk’ from the Radio Academy is worth a listen – it’s a ‘Myers Report Special’.
“The Myers Report is the biggest news story this week and to discuss its implications, Trevor Dann is joined in the studio by Andy Parfitt (Controller of Radio 1, 1Xtra, Popular Music and Asian Network), Simon Cole (Chief Executive, UBC Media) and Paul Robinson (Media Consultant and Managing Director, Kids Co TV).
Should Radio 1 and Radio 2 share premises? Is there a defence for the staffing levels at Newsbeat? What is quality? What are QRV, DQF and AI? What do Radio 1 talk about on their away days? What can be done to lighten the compliance load? How has Music policy developed at Radio 1? Are jobs now at risk?
We’ve also got an exclusive interview with the man himself, Mr John Myers, to find out the background to the report and what he learnt during the process.”
http://www.radioacademy.org/podcast/get.php?web=podcast-2011-06-16-95169.mp3
Also worth a listen is this weeks Steve Hewlett’s Media Show on Radio 4, where he talks to Tim Davie, and this weeks Guardian Media Talk talks to Myers as well. Not got round to listening to the Radio Talk pod cast that Paul mentions yet (that’s my Monday commute listen, the former two podcasts I mention being by Thursday and Friday listening.)
52 people to make two 15-minutes of news bulletins (when much is actually from BBC News in W12) is slightly bizarre, though interesting that John makes it clear to praise Rod McKenzie before he mentions this figure.
What he doesn’t mention in his report – at least, in the executive summary that we see – is that every 90-second news bulletin on Radio 1 has three people putting it together. Three. One to read it, one to write it, one to check it. Which I find more astonishing, being honest.