BBC Radio 1 and 2 should streamline management, says report

Review criticises overuse of studio managers on Radio 2, and says there are opportunities for significant reduction of overheads Tim Davie rules out creating single Radio 1 and 2 controller BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 should consider introducing a combined management structure and operations, a report into the workings of the two stations recommended on Tuesday. The review said money was being wasted on studio managers who were being used as a “comfort blanket” by presenters on some Radio 2 shows to operate basic equipment that DJs normally operate themselves. It also criticised Radio 2 for employing newsreaders who read a brief hourly news update but then did “little else until the next hour’s bulletin”. The review questioned whether Radio 1′s Newsbeat programme, which broadcasts a 15-minute bulletin twice a day – as well as hourly news updates – needed to employ 52 full-time staff, and said compliance procedures tightened up in the wake of the “Sachsgate” scandal had run out of control. The report, by former commercial radio executive John Myers, was commissioned by the BBC’s director of audio and music, Tim Davie, to investigate opportunities for cost savings across Radio 1 and Radio 2, as well as their digital sister stations, 1Xtra and BBC 6 Music. Myers praised Radio 1 and Radio 2 as at the top of their game but said there were opportunities for significant reduction of overheads. His report said that the two stations should examine “the advantages of operating under a single-tier management structure” within a single building and remove “all mirrored departments”. However, in his response to the Myers report, Davie ruled out taking any management restructure as far as appointing a single controller for the two networks . Radio 1 and 1Xtra are overseen by Andy Parfitt and based in Yalding House in central London, separate to Radio 2 and 6 Music, which are controlled by Bob Shennan and situated in nearby Weston House. Radio 1 is due to move into the corporation’s newly refurbished Broadcasting House. Myers also said some Radio 2 presenters were using other staff as a “comfort blanket” – operating the basic studio equipment that DJs typically operate themselves – and recommended that the station’s talent should be “encouraged to self-operate wherever possible”. He also said more Radio 2 DJs should broadcast live, rather than pre-record their shows, to save money. Myers said the stations’ news programmes were “expensive to run and both structurally and financially complicated”. Newsreaders on Radio 2 “do not write any of the news material themselves” and had “very little interplay with the general presenters … and do little else until the next hour’s bulletin”. Myers suggested that Radio 1′s Newsbeat, which employs 52 full-time staff in addition to its own technical and production personnel, could become the “central newsroom for all four popular music networks”. An estimated 4.5 million people hear one of Newsbeat’s 15-minute programmes at least once a week, with its hourly bulletins reaching around 10 million listeners a week. In total the station broadcasts six hours of news a week, along with monthly Newsbeat specials. The network is also developing longer-form, single issue Newsbeat programmes which have been dubbed “Panorama for young people”. They were announced by the Radio 1 controller, Andy Parfitt, last year. Radio 2 newsreaders, in addition to reading the hourly bulletin, are expected to monitor the news wires, liaise with journalists in the newsroom and are on standby for breaking stories and emergencies. Myers said the four radio stations were “well run and expertly managed”. But he added there was “limited evidence of sharing best practice or ideas” with a “huge amount of experience and professionalism that goes unshared”. “It is slightly confusing for someone from outside the BBC to understand why 6 Music is not sitting with the Radio 1 family, as there is clearly more connection musically within that team than with Radio 2,” he said. BBC Radio 1 has a budget of £37m, with £48.3m spent on Radio 2 each year. However, Myers said it was unclear how a significant proportion of this money was being spent, with less than 50% of the budget at the discretion of the station controller. The rest was spent on news, royalty payments, transmitters and other costs. Myers said the corporation’s compliance procedures were the source of the biggest complaints from staff. “I agree it is quite right for the BBC to have good, workable systems in place but a review is required if morale is to be protected and producers can continue to do what they do best,” he said. “The best way of achieving this goal is to restore much more responsibility back to the producers at the front line.” Myers, the former chief executive of Smooth Radio parent GMG Radio, part of the group that publishes MediaGuardian.co.uk, was previously commissioned by the then Labour government to write a report about commercial radio in 2009 . He is now chief executive of the cross-industry body, the Radio Academy. The remit of Myers’s latest report did not include one of the most controversial areas of BBC spending – the amount it pays talent. •

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