BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2003/2004 ReportAnnual and BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2003/2004 British Broadcasting Corporation Broadcasting House London W1A 1AA bbc.co.uk © BBC 2004 Purpose, vision and values Purpose Our purpose is to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain Vision Our vision is to be the most creative organisation in the world Values Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest Audiences are at the heart of everything we do We take pride in delivering quality and value for money Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best We are one BBC: great things happen when we work together 2 BBC AnnualBBC Report Annual and Report Accounts and Accounts 2003/2004 2003/2004 2 Contents 2 58 Chairman’s statement Performance against Statements of Programme Policy 4 commitments 2003/2004 The Hutton Inquiry 6 How the BBC is run Governors’ review of commercial activities 8 Board of Governors 68 BBC Worldwide Limited 10 Executive Committee 70 BBC Ventures Group Limited 12 Governors’ review of objectives 72 BBC people and talent Governors’ review 74 of services Being accountable and responsible 24 Television 82 Compliance 32 Radio 97 Financial review 40 New media 99 Financial statements 42 News 136 Broadcasting facts and figures 46 Learning 147 Getting in touch with the BBC 48 Nations & Regions 148 Other information 54 BBC World Service & Global News BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2003/2004 Chairman’s statement This is a transitional document. section on Hutton in this report makes It is sometimes claimed that the BBC is Traditionally the Annual Report and Accounts clear – to make changes to some of the unaccountable and largely self-regulating. has been as much about marketing the BBC’s editorial processes and to the way it But one of the surprising things I’ve BBC as holding it to account – and as handles complaints. I am confident that the discovered since I started as Chairman much about management’s view of its own implementation of these changes will allow is the large number of regulations against performance as about the Governors’ us to draw a line. which the BBC is already measured. view of management’s performance. Until recently the BBC had to deal with But I do want to make one thing clear. just three externally imposed quotas. This Annual Report is different. It is the The BBC is not worth having if it is not As a result of the 2003 Communications first step in turning the BBC’s Annual editorially independent. I and the other Act we now have another 52 to deal with. Report into a document owned by Governors will defend the BBC’s right And there are more to come next year. the Governors, which evaluates the to do difficult and courageous journalism performance of BBC management about powerful people and powerful It is right that we justify our privileged against publicly stated objectives and institutions. That kind of journalism – position. But it is important that we have commitments. We intend to take this set within a strengthened editorial the appropriate targets in place to ensure process further in future years. framework – must remain one of the the BBC’s programmes and services reflect hallmarks of the BBC. what really matters – the needs and interests The reforms to the BBC’s system of our funders, the licence payers. of governance outlined in our Building The Hutton Inquiry made people reflect Public Value document make clear that on the enduring value of a strong and In future, the Governors will assess we mean to move rapidly to strengthen independent BBC to Britain. When the BBC performance against four key targets: the Governors’ clear independence from lost both its Chairman and Director-General reach, impact, value for money and quality. management. Governors will provide in the space of 24 hours it did feel like In judging the outcomes we will take an themselves with the resources to a watershed. At that moment it is not overall perspective. commission independent advice to enable surprising that some people began to us to carry out close and rigorous scrutiny contemplate the prospect of Britain The BBC delivers value well beyond its of BBC programmes and services. Annual without the BBC. programmes and services. The case we Reports will be explicitly Governors’ are making in the Charter Review process reports and primarily concerned with And the truth is that the BBC is not is that the BBC is worth keeping because assessing performance and holding inevitable. It exists because it earns its of the immense amount of public value management to account. place in the affections of our audiences it delivers. Public value means not just the by enriching lives through information, BBC’s value to people as individuals, but This Annual Report is different in another education and entertainment. The BBC has also its value to people as citizens, and way too. There is no Director-General’s constantly to renew and refresh the bonds beyond that, its value to the broadcasting report, because the new Director-General, that link us to those audiences. We have and creative industries as a whole. Mark Thompson, did not work for the BBC to listen, learn and respond – and then in the period under review. go back and do it again. As Governors, For the individual, the BBC’s value is the effective engagement with the British public information, education and entertainment Neither, of course, did I. I watched the and responsiveness to their concerns must it provides. For the citizen, the BBC’s Hutton Inquiry and its aftermath unfold lie at the heart of our role as trustees value is its contribution to the wider as just another licence payer. And well of the public interest. social, democratic and cultural health before I was appointed, the BBC had of the UK. And for the broadcasting begun to learn the lessons and – as the and creative industries, the BBC’s value 2 BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2003/2004 lies in its investment in training and in steering the BBC through one of the creative production. most difficult periods in its history. The aims of the BBC are to underpin One final tribute – to Alistair Cooke who citizenship, enrich cultural life, contribute died earlier this year aged 95, only a few to education for all, make the UK a more weeks after delivering his final Letter from inclusive society, and to support the UK’s America on BBC Radio 4 and BBC World role in the world. Service. Cooke was a great reporter and a wonderful broadcaster – shrewd, This is the case we will be making over thoughtful and humane. He wrote like an the coming months as the debate over the angel and he could write with equal insight renewal of the BBC’s Charter gathers pace. and vibrant detail about an extraordinary range of topics: politics, history, space travel, The strength of the BBC is its people. jazz, golf. He respected his listeners, and And there are some people I want to his listeners loved him. The result was pay tribute to here. the world’s longest running speech radio programme. The BBC can learn from that. The first is my predecessor as Chairman, Gavyn Davies, who gave so much to support the ideals of the BBC and who showed great courage and dignity in the manner of his departure. It is one of the ironies of BBC history that a Chairman resigned having defended the independence of the BBC. Michael Grade Chairman The next is Greg Dyke. As Director-General, 17 June 2004 Greg did a huge amount to restore and build staff morale. And his championship of Freeview was the crucial decision that has made the switch-over to a fully digital Britain a realistic prospect. Freeview showed Greg’s vision and leadership and the Governors were right to support him in this initiative. On behalf of the Governors I would also like to thank Richard Ryder for stepping in as Acting Chairman at a particularly demanding moment. On behalf of the Governors, too, I want to put on record our thanks to Mark Byford. As Acting Director-General he played a key role BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2003/2004 3 The Hutton Inquiry Chronology hearing of the House of Commons Foreign accepted that some of his reporting had On 29 May 2003 Andrew Gilligan, Affairs Committee, and released one of his been inaccurate. The BBC admissions were: Defence Correspondent for Today, letters of complaint to the press. The BBC the 6.07 broadcast should have been broadcast a number of reports about in its reply again stood by its decision to scripted the dossier published by the Government broadcast the report. the 6.07 broadcast contained inaccuracies. in September 2002 entitled Iraq’s Weapons It did not distinguish sufficiently between of Mass Destruction. At the end of June, Andrew Gilligan’s what Dr Kelly had said and Andrew source, Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Gilligan’s interpretation of what he had At 6.07am he did a live ‘two-way’ (a report Defence (MoD) scientist, told his manager said. The BBC accepted that Dr Kelly did in the form of an interview with a presenter) that he had spoken to Andrew Gilligan and not say the Government had put in the which raised serious questions about the might be a source for the Today report.