The newspaper for BBC pensioners – with highlights from Ariel online The true story of Mission to Hell Page 4 August 2015 • Issue 4 Trainee Oh! What operators a lovely reunite – Vietnam War TFS 1964 50 years on Page 6 Page 8 Page 12 NEWS • MEMORIES • CLASSIFIEDS • YOUR LETTERS • OBITUARIES • CROSPERO 02 BACK AT THE BBC Departments Annual report highlights ‘better’ for BBC challenge move to Salford The BBC faces a challenge to keep all parts of the audience happy at the same time as efficiency targets demand that it does less. said that certain segments of society were more than £150k and to trim the senior being underserved. manager population to around 1% of But this pressing need to deliver more and the workforce. in different ways comes with a warning that In March this year, 95 senior managers Delivering Quality First (DQF) is set to take a collected salaries of more than £150k against bigger bite of BBC services. a target of 72. The annual report reiterates that £484m ‘We continue to work towards these of DQF annual savings have already been targets but they have not yet been achieved,’ achieved, with the BBC on track to deliver its the BBC admitted, attributing this to ‘changes Staff ‘loved the move’ from London to target of £700m pa savings by 2016/17. in the external market’ and the consolidation Salford that took place in 2011 and The first four years of DQF have seen of senior roles into larger jobs. departments ‘are better for it’, believes Peter Salmon (pictured). a 25% reduction in the proportion of the More staff licence fee spent on overheads, with 93% of Speaking four years on from the biggest There may be too many at the top, but the the BBC’s ‘controllable spend’ now going on ever BBC migration, the director, BBC gap between average BBC earnings and Tony content and distribution. England says that those employees who Hall’s pay packet has narrowed due to a 2% However, Anne Bulford, managing director uprooted from the capital to join the pay rise for staff. of finance and operations, admitted that ‘an newly-created BBC North had no regrets. The director-general’s static £450k salary unprecedented focus on efficiency’ meant ‘The staff loved the move, they love Rona Fairhead. is now 10.7 times as much as median BBC that ‘some difficult choices lay ahead’, as it the north. It’s affordable, people are pay – down from 10.9 times last year. became tougher to do more for less. friendly and the weather, contrary to Talent, though, took home a bigger he BBC annual report and accounts ‘Since 2011/12, around 30% of the expectation, isn’t bad,’ Salmon tells the chunk of the licence fee, with spending on for 2014/15 – published on £484m per annum DQF and Strategic Manchester Evening News. actors, dancers, musicians, presenters and Tuesday 14 July – reveal that Initiative savings delivered to date have been But he concedes that two-thirds of the performers up by £14m to £208m – 12% while nearly every UK adult made through scope reductions. This is 3,000-strong MediaCity workforce do of internal content spend against a limit T(97%) watches BBC television, listens to expected to rise to almost 50% in the final not come from Greater Manchester, of 16%. The highest paid stars collectively its radio stations or uses BBC online, they years of the programme,’ she said. while just 10% live in Salford. earned nearly £1m more than last year. aren’t hanging around for as long and they Fairhead concurred at the annual report ‘It wasn’t engineered in any particular The annual report also revealed a rise appreciate the services less. press briefing: ‘The trust is clear that there way, but we can’t just bring people in in staff numbers, in a year of ‘substantial Every BBC television channel, for instance, are likely to be scope cuts.’ because of their postcode,’ he reasons. organisational change’, to 18,974. lost both reach and audience appreciation – ‘We’ve got to bring good people in.’ Keep entertaining That’s up 327 on last year – the increase a trend across broadcasters as people spend Tony Hall was unable to provide further reflecting the inclusion of World Service More jobs more time online – while only BBC One and details as to where the axe might fall, but staff, extra recruitment for the Scottish The director points out that the shift CBeebies kept audiences watching for longer told journalists that he would be working Referendum and Commonwealth Games and North has helped create a ‘thriving digital than last year. with Bulford over the summer to reach investment in digital expertise. community’ and has boosted the number And, worryingly, the biggest dips were some decisions. An all-time high of 13.2% for BAME of jobs in Salford’s creative sector, which among the harder-to-reach young and black But the director-general refused to staff was also reached, with the number has seen a 75% increase in employment and minority ethnic viewers. support the call for a ‘much diminished’ of BAME and women senior managers since 2011. ‘The population is more varied and BBC and said it was ‘non-negotiable’ that the rising to 7.6% (from 6.8) and 38.4% BBC investment in the North has risen diverse in its tastes than ever, and a wider organisation continued to be for everyone. (from 37.2) respectively. too, with the likes of BBC Children’s range of services and editorial approaches are ‘It’s central to our democracy and our shared But the BBC Trust was concerned that spending £43m a year today compared needed to meet their needs,’ wrote BBC Trust culture,’ he argued. numbers of disabled staff and senior to its pre-2011 £700,000. chair Rona Fairhead in her foreword. He said it was ‘vital’ to make the managers fell short of targets and said the And northern talent, such as Peter Kay ‘The BBC needs to recognise that young transition to an internet-first BBC and to BBC was still finding it ‘challenging’ to and writer Sally Wainwright, has helped audiences in particular expect ever more ‘reinvent public service broadcasting for reflect the diversity of audiences in its give the region a bigger on-screen presence. personal and interactive services that are young audiences’. own make-up. Northern-based hits like Happy Valley, accessible on a range of devices – TV on their And he dismissed the argument for the Elsewhere, staff and senior managers The Syndicate and Car Share have been made own terms.’ BBC to retreat from entertainment. ‘It’s hard continued to depart the Corporation, alongside BBC staples like Match of the Day, Scope cuts to support any proposal that stops us funding triggered by cuts and moves out of London BBC Breakfast and Blue Peter. And she said there was still ‘a long way to the next Strictly, the next Bake-Off or... the next (54% now work outside the capital). The number of BBC TV hours made in go’ to ensure that ‘the whole of the UK’s Top Gear,’ claimed the DG as he reflected on ‘a The BBC spent more than £18m on the North has risen four-fold over the rich diversity is reflected on screen and on year we can be really proud of’. 303 redundancy payouts in 2014/15, with past four years, from 441 to 1,508, while the airwaves’. Off-air, the report revealed that the BBC £1.6m of the total going on senior manager national radio hours have shot up from Although 64% of adults believe the BBC has fallen short of its targets to reduce by severance. Nobody left with more than the 1000 to 13,000 a year, with Radio 4’s provides content for ‘people like us’, Fairhead 20% the number of senior managers earning £150,000 cap. You & Yours leading the pack. Please send your editorial contributions, or comments/ feedback, to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Prospero is provided free of charge to retired BBC Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ. employees, or to their spouses and dependants. Email: [email protected] Prospero provides a source of news on former colleagues, Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are developments at the BBC and pension issues, plus classified scanned at 300 dpi. adverts. It is available online at www.bbc.co.uk/mypension To advertise in Prospero, please see page 12. The next issue of Prospero will appear in October 2015. To view Ariel online, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/ariel. The copy deadline is Friday, 4 September 2015. PROSPERO AUGUST 2015 03 BBC tours get top marks from visitors Three of the BBC’s behind-the-scenes tours have been awarded a certificate of excellence by the travel website Trip Advisor. he attractions at BBC Birmingham, work – even creating a Harry-Potter style Broadcasting House and Salford invisibility cloak with a clever piece of have not only drawn record green screen trickery. numbers of visitors over the last Arwen Tugwell, head of studio audiences and Tyear, they’ve also had rave reviews. Ariel took tours, explains that it is this element, a trip backstage at the Mailbox. combined with the passion of the guides, ‘We’ve got a good dozen or so people on that makes the visits so magical. today’s tour from all over the place – County ‘Physical experiences are really important Durham, Cheshire, Yorkshire and even one and actually sitting on the red breakfast from Finland.’ sofa or the green One Show sofa is a great Debbie Jaura and Sue James are waiting in photo opportunity for our visitors.