BBC bosses are facing a “talent drain” as staffers burnish their CVs in order to escape an organisation where morale has hit “rock bottom”.
More than 2,000 jobs are set to go across TV and radio in a drive to save £500m as the BBC seeks to plug a funding gap caused by an accelerating rate of licence fee cancellations.
However, with the BBC offering voluntary redundancy packages, insiders warn that the corporation’s talent base could be fatally eroded, as highly skilled staffers are snapped up by rival media organisations.
“Voluntary redundancy means the people you want to stay end up taking the money and going elsewhere,” said one News figure.
“Morale is at rock bottom. People are buffing their CVs. We are losing people with the vital experience that prevents damaging errors.”
Rivals snap up BBC talent
LinkedIn is littered with posts from employees posing outside Broadcasting House marking their final day at the BBC.
One News and Sport product manager was immediately offered a new opportunity at Bauer Media, the BBC’s radio rival which signed Zoe Ball and Ken Bruce to its Greatest Hits Radio network.
Another member of the team developing the BBC’s News and Sport apps, who left last month, has already started as senior product manager at Amazon, working on its AI shopping assistant.
BBC director-general Matt Brittin told Laura Kuenssberg that every adult who uses BBC services should contribute to a licence fee replacement (Photo: BBC)Key figure to leave
A major blow to the BBC is the imminent departure of Alice Macandrew, the £325,000 Corporate Affairs director. She is a crucial liaison between the corporation and government in negotiations over a new BBC Charter.
“The BBC is an extraordinary organisation and an extraordinarily difficult place to leave. But sometimes you need to be brave enough to make a call,” said Macandrew.
She will stay in post until a government deal, including a reformed licence fee, is concluded.
But a colleague said: “It’s a big loss for the director-general (Matt Brittin). Alice is very highly regarded and can walk into any job she wanted next.”
Talent could follow Rajan
On-screen talent are watching with interest the progress of Amol Rajan, who quit his £325,000 Today programme role to launch his own YouTube channel.
Celebrity Traitors contestant Amol Rajan (l) quit his BBC News role to launch his own digital venture (Photo: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert)Rajan said he left because “the BBC and BBC News is in the years to come, going to get smaller at an accelerating rate, and I want to go to where the action is.”
However, giving up the security of a BBC salary and the ability to still reach an audience of millions, despite the BBC’s woes, is too big a risk for most star names, so far.
Axed reporter called back
Staffers point to the handling of Guy De Launey, a contracted BBC foreign news reporter for 22 years, as an example of a lack of strategic thinking behind the cuts.
Balkans expert De Launey was told in an email: “Like all of BBC News more widely, we are facing large savings targets. Therefore, we have decided that we will not be renewing your engagement letter with us when it expires.”
There were “no words of thanks or appreciation. No suggestions on exactly how one should fill the sudden enormous gap in income with 6 weeks’ notice,” he said.
However, weeks later, his former bosses asked De Launey to report for BBC News on the funeral of Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić, titling him Balkans Correspondent.
“It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, isn’t it? You know that song by Loose Ends, Hangin’ on a String? I think it’s that kind of scenario,” the journalist, who is a regular contributor to Monocle radio, wrote on LinkedIn.
DG’s ‘David Brent’ staff meeting
Brittin this week sought to stem the exodus by giving staff a vision of the BBC’s future at a town hall meeting.
Promising to “protect the magic of the BBC,” the former Google president vowed to overhaul iPlayer, unveiling a prototype AI agent called “Iggy” which can recommend programmes.
However, Brittin’s pledge that the BBC should be “a bit more Elvis – a little less conversation, a little more action” prompted mocking David Brent comparisons from staff.
Adapting insights from his 20 years at Google, Brittin said he wanted the BBC to take more risks and “get faster to outcomes that make a difference to an audience.”
Matt Brittin’s call for the BBC to be ‘more Elvis’ prompted comparisons to Ricky Gervais’s David Brent (Photo: BBC picture archives)Brittin denied that morale was crumbling.
“I don’t dismiss the impact of uncertainty on everybody, but we also have a really powerful, motivated staff and I don’t think that narrative applies to everyone,” he said.
A BBC source claimed that Brittin’s vision to “free up the organisation and unlock what he can see is already here – creativity and skill, ideas and tech know-how – resonated with staff, many of whom want to look ahead and see beyond savings and uncertainty about funding.”
Listener fury over Radio 4 cull
The morning after Brittin’s address, the BBC said it was cutting a raft of Radio 4 programmes, including the long-running consumer and social affairs show You and Yours.
Listeners told Radio 4’s Feedback programme that they were “shocked” and “furious” at the scrapping of the 56-year-old series.
The social sciences show Thinking Allowed will also go, along with arts and ideas programme Free Thinking, The Artificial Human and Open Country.
Radio 5 Live will also see a reduction in commissioning on its schedule and podcasts in measures to achieve 10 per cent savings across the BBC Speech and Sounds budget.
BBC ‘multiple acts of self-harm’
Stephen Sackur, whose long-running BBC News interview show HARDtalk was axed last year, said the corporation was “committing multiple acts of self-harm”.
“Current senior management do not seem to understand that in the changing media landscape the BBC should still be providing content the commercial sector is unwilling or unable to invest in.”
Jonathan Wall, director of BBC Sounds, said: “These are difficult decisions, and they are not based on cost alone. We need to make significant savings while investing for the future.”
Hundreds of jobs are also at risk, with the BBC expected to announce the closure of the BBC Three and BBC Scotland broadcast TV channels, with much of their content moved online.
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