rANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 1989/90 Board of Governors Board of Management as at 31 March 1990 as at 31 March 1990 Chairman Director -General Marmaduke Hussey Michael Checkland Vice -Chairman Deputy Director -General The Rt Hon Lord Barnett Pc John Birt National Governor for Northern Ireland Managing Director, World Service Dr James Kincade CBE John Tusa National Governor for Wales Managing Director, Network Radio John Parry CBE David Hatch National Governor for Scotland Managing Director, Network Television Professor Sir Graham Hills Paul Fox CBE Governors Managing Director, Regional Broadcasting Sir Curtis Keeble GCMG Ronald Neil Dr John Roberts Director of Engineering P. D. James OBE Bill Dennay Bill Jordan Keith Oates Director of Corporate Affairs Howell James Watson Peat CBE JP and Lady Parkes JP retired from the Board on 31 July 1989 Director of Finance Ian Phillips Director of Personnel Roger Chase Published for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, London WIA IAA Produced by BBC Information Services Designed by Benjamin Rowntree Reports Limited Printed by Jolly & Barber Ltd, Rugby, Warwickshire © BBC 1990 Contents I Chairman's Foreword 2 2 Director -General's Statement 4 3 Board of Governors' Review 6 4 News and Current Affairs 12 5 Network Television 18 6 Network Radio 30 7 Regional Broadcasting 40 8 World Service 54 9 Religion 64 IO Education 67 11 Policy and Research 70 12 Legal Affairs 73 13 Public Accountability 74 14 Personnel 77 15 Advisory Bodies 78 16 Engineering 80 17 Enterprises 84 18 Awards 88 19 Statistics 92 20 Finance 95 21 Financial Statements Auditors' Report 97 Statement of Accounting Policies 98 Home Services Group Statement of Income and Expenditure 100 Balance Sheets 101 Consolidated Source and Application of Funds Statement 102 Notes to the Financial Statements 103 World Service Statement of Income and Expenditure 108 Balance Sheet 109 Source and Application of Funds Statement 110 Notes to the Financial Statements I I I 22 Index 114 Chairman's Foreword Broadcasting Bill this year and the growth of satellite television and commercial radio channels underscore this sea -change. The BBC has welcomed this new broadcasting environment. Much has been achieved by everyone in the BBC over the past years and I believe that we are now a more confident and better- managed organ- isation. Our structures have been rational- ised. The Board of Governors and Board of Management work harmoniously together. Our staff has a much clearer idea of the BBC's objectives and they are better equipped to face the Nineties. Last summer's dispute, though, focused our minds on the challenges which confront the BBC. The fundamental issue we face is to reconcile an adequate and competitive BBC Chairman staff remuneration with the investment Marmaduke necessary to retain and continually to Hussey with a improve the quality of our programmes. bronze bust of The resolution of this equation, examined Lord Reith on in the `Funding the Future' report published the centenary of at the beginning of the year, will inevitably Reith's birth affect the way the BBC is structured and This has been a year of significant change staffed. The recommendations of that for the BBC and for the whole broadcasting report are a start, but senior management industry. This might easily have been will have to work hard to maintain the written in each of my three previous intro- momentum. ductions to the BBC's Annual Report to The guiding principle of the BBC must Parliament. But, after so many predictions, be what it always has been - to provide much guesswork and some false starts, we the widest range of quality programmes have finally seen in the last 12 months the right across the full range of licence -payers' real transformation of the broadcasting tastes, interests and enthusiasms, or, as landscape. the Charter outlines, to inform, educate The BBC began its life as a government - and entertain. protected monopoly and then, after the In the past year we celebrated an arrival of ITV, became part of a government - important anniversary - the centenary of protected duopoly. Now that comfortable the birth of Lord Reith. In 1924, when arrangement has gone once and for all, broadcasting technology was in its infancy, and the BBC is part, albeit the largest and John Reith defined with remarkable most wide -ranging part, of a multi -national, prescience the objectives of the BBC in a highly competitive and increasingly market - deceptively simple but telling sentence: directed industry. The passage of the `The BBC's role is to bring the best of 2 BBC Annual Report and Accounts 1989/90 Chairman's Foreword continued everything to the greatest number of That represents extraordinary loyalty and homes.' affection for our programmes in all their I am proud to repeat Reith's words because diversity, nationally, regionally and locally I believe that BBC programmes in the past and, equally, extraordinary value for year have demonstrated beyond doubt our money. continuing commitment to his vision. The The licence fee, I believe, remains the BBC reported the historic events in Eastern best system available for ensuring that the Europe on television, radio and the World BBC retains its courage, integrity and Service with unrivalled authority and independence - independence from immediacy. There is still an enormous pressure from any source, political, hunger for unbiased news and information commercial or propagandist. In return for in this country and across the world. The this distinctive form of funding, the BBC World Service's trusted role in dissemi- must be ever conscious of the privilege nating truth in this year of European rev- and responsibility that goes with it. We olutions has been outstanding. The time must continue to offer licence -payers the has now come when the World Service highest quality programmes, enabling the should secure the appropriate funds to nation to speak to itself in a fair and un- augment its radio broadcasting with tele- biased manner, in news and information, vision transmissions. At home we are all entertainment and the arts. Critical to that conscious of the impact that the successful is not just quality but the objective and introduction of cameras to the House of impartial presentation of public issues Commons has made to political coverage across our entire output. Every time we on television and we welcome it. The fall below those high standards we weaken World Service equally should add cameras the argument for the retention of the licence to their microphones. fee. It is the joint responsibility of the What makes the BBC different from Board of Governors and the Board of every other broadcaster is its method of Management to ensure that we do not. funding. The licence fee is a unique con- tract between the broadcaster and the public, which listens to and watches BBC programmes for an average of nearly three Marmaduke Hussey hours a day, every single day of the year. Chairman BBC Annual Report and Accounts 1989/90 3 2 Director -General's Statement but to fund programme development. Recognising the need for the BBC to consider these far -reaching concerns, the `Funding the Future' committee under Director of Finance, Ian Phillips, was set up, briefed to find savings in order to fund a more competitive pay strategy, but with- out detriment to our programme output. In tandem with `Funding the Future' - the main proposals of which are discussed in the Board of Governors' review and in the Finance section of this Annual Report - the consultants Peat Marwick McLintock were asked to undertake a wide- ranging examination of pay, grading and conditions of service. How the recommendations in the consultants' report are to be implemented is still being discussed, but I am committed to a BBC which makes quality programmes BBC As the much anticipated new market across the range of public service broad- Director-General environment for broadcasting developed casting and which recognises that such Michael through 1989, the BBC continued to show programmes are the result of creative Checkland the imagination and the will to change - people working together, who have to be and the determination to manage that motivated and rewarded fairly. change effectively. Regrettably, in the process of achieving It certainly was not without broad- this, some jobs will be lost, as they will also casting triumphs. News and current affairs be as a consequence of the steady increase were spurred by events in China and in programmes made by independent pro- Eastern Europe, and by the introduction ducers, in line with the requirements of of television cameras into the House of the Broadcasting Bill. Only by shaping a Commons. Drama struck a particularly leaner and better -run BBC will we be equal rich seam. Audiences were high. The to the challenges of the Nineties. Even so, professional recognition at the major such losses are painful and we are approach- awards ceremonies was overwhelming. ing these changes in as responsible and But it was not without challenges. decent a way as we can. There was the Broadcasting Bill and its There are many challenges facing us. many issues (see panel page 11). A pay From April next year, the BBC itself takes dispute last summer highlighted how some over from the Post Office the responsibility BBC rates of pay had fallen behind in the for the collection of the licence fee. From industry. Staff in key areas were being lost that date, the Government intends to set to new competitors. And, faced with the the level of the licence taking into account expanding broadcasting market, there was our ability to generate income from sub- the need not only to maintain programmes scription services - the sales of specialist 4 BBC Annual Report and Accounts 1989, 90 Director- General's Statement continued 2 professional, educational and entertain- for these has been included in the 1990 -91 ment packages delivered in encoded form budget.