The end of the BBC 'lifer'?

Friday, September 07, 2007

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During my interview with BBC Vision chief Jana Bennett, we touched on the vexed issue of BBC 'lifers' - those programme-makers who spend their entire careers in the corporation's cosy cocoon. Bennett thinks they may be a dying breed as the coming years will see a greater flow of traffic to and from the independent sector which - thanks to the introduction of the Window of Creative Competition (WOCC) - will now have access to half of the BBC's qualifying commissioning hours.

"I do think the BBC needs to be a more porous organisation rather than seeing itself as some sort of citadel," she said tellingly. "That really isn't the shape of the industry these days at all. We should have fewer walls and accept that people will be moving in and out of different types of employment over their career."

Bennett herself - who was born in New York and grew up in New Hampshire before moving to Bognor Regis, of all places, as a teen - left the BBC after twenty years of rising through the ranks to work for Discovery in the USA where she stayed for three years.

It was probably there - or on one of those obligatory US business courses to which all BBC top execs get sent - where she started using the most extraordinary buzzwords and phrases when talking about TV and its various platforms. Phrases such as "three dimensional scheduling", "For Me content", "evergreen value" programming and "Big TV" are some of the ones she used during our encounter.

Jana Bennett is talked of, very sensibly I think, as a future BBC director general. But if she is to get the top job, then she'll have to ditch the buzzwords and management speak. As a former BBC staffer, I know that no one likes being addressed by a boss who refers to "evergreen value" when what they actually mean is good programmes that will last.

Posted by James Silver - On Friday, September 07, 2007

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