BBC REVAMP FOR DIGITAL AGE
OK, back to that BBC restructure story we touched on yesterday - and a quick
summary of how the Corporation will be divided up in the coming years. As
previously reported, and as expected, the Beeb announced yesterday that it
is about to embark on one of those always expensive often pointless
reorganisations, aiming to build an organisation capable of achieving, what
BBC boss Mark Thompson likes to call, "360 degree multiplatform content
creation". My very favourite kind of content creation.
Thompson claims that the revamp will enable the Corporation to identify,
develop and produce new creative ideas quicker, while ensuring that online
or mobile elements of shows are developed in unison with broadcast elements
- rather than being add ons developed by a separate department once the TV
or radio bit is done and dusted. All of that stuff will now be based in one
mega-division, to be called BBC Vision, and which will incorporate existing
commissioning and production departments like 'Television', 'Drama,
Children's and Entertainment' and 'Factual and Learning'.
Sitting next to that will be a Future Media And Technology department, which
will do all the techy stuff associated with new media - whether that be web
or digital or mobile. They will develop and manage new ways of getting
programmes and content out to the BBC's audience, and will be responsible
for the main BBC website, the BBC iPlayer and the digital archive. They
won't, however, develop specific programme websites because those, as I
believe we've just mentioned, will come from the same teams creating the
programmes themselves in that BBC Vision department.
News and sport and all that local, national and global current affairs
nonsense will sit in one new big department called BBC Journalism. Meanwhile
the Marketing, Communications And Audiences department will be given new
influence as "an advocate for audiences" within the Corporation, whatever
that means.
Commercial division BBC Worldwide will continue pretty much as before,
though its boss, John Smith, will relinquish those responsibilities he
currently has over non-commercial parts of the Corporation. BBC Finance
will, well, do finance things I guess; BBC People will fire people, I mean
recruit, develop and support the BBC workforce; and BBC Operations will, I
don't know, operate?
Finally there'll be the slightly revamped Audio & Music division - probably
most important for everyone round here given that it will have
responsibility for all network radio (speech and music), and for music
across the Corporation, including on TV (not that there will be much of that
once TOTP is dumped - the music playing in the café on Eastenders I
suppose).
And that's it. BBC bosses hope to have the organisation properly reorganised
by next Spring. Concluding his summary of the revamp plans, Thompson told
his staff: "We need a BBC ready for digital and for 360 degree multiplatform
content creation, which brings different kinds of creativity together - in
technology as well as content - to deliver what we need in this converging
world".