Salford move helps increase BBC overheads by £15m

MediaCityUK relocation and Broadcasting House redevelopment raise overhead costs • Read the BBC 2010-11 annual report in full BBC overheads rose by about £15m in its last financial year because of spending on the controversial relocation of several thousand staff from London to Salford and the redevelopment of Broadcasting House. The increase in overhead costs from £406.3m to £421m was revealed on Tuesday as the BBC published its annual report for the 12 months to the end of March. London-based employees who are relocating began moving to the new BBC North base at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays in May , with about 2,300 posts due to be transferred by next year. In central London the redevelopment of BBC Broadcasting House is nearing completion, with BBC News staff expected to relocate there from Television Centre. The annual report also reveals the number of complaints about BBC programmes grew by 20,000 in the 2010-11 financial year, with the volume of the incidental music in Prof Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe proving the single-biggest bone of contention. Drama output decreased by 630 hours, with the corporation attributing this mainly to cutting the number of US imports it broadcast. Cuts to BBC World Service output resulting from a reduction in its Foreign Office grant are having an impact, with the international broadcaster’s audience down by 14 million, according to the corporation. The BBC had forecast that the cuts would cost the World Service 30 million listeners, although not all service closures and cutbacks have been implemented yet, while the Hindi short-wave and Somali services and broadcasts to the Arab world have been reprieved . As reported by MediaGuardian earlier in July , the BBC’s overall talent costs dropped by £9m to £213m in the year to the end of March. Part of this reduction was due to the departure of The One Show presenters Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, who switched to ITV’s Daybreak in 2010, cutting £2.3m from the BBC’s talent costs. More details soon… • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . BBC BBC Salford move BBC licence fee Television industry Tara Conlan guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.