Dyke announces BBC shakeup

The BBC’s Director-General Greg Dyke yesterday unveiled both the BBC’s new management structure and the names of the senior executives who will drive the BBC forward in the early years of the 21st century. He told BBC staff that his aim in the next five years was to reduce the amount of money currently spent on running the BBC from 24% of its total income to 15% over a five year period. This would free up an additional £200 million a year to be spent on programmes and would help meet the Government’s savings target for the BBC of £1.2 billion worth of savings over the next seven years.

He also announced that the BBC would be spending at least £100 million more on BBC programming and services in the coming year. Dyke said: "As a result of the review we have taken out a complete level of management in the new structure. It’s flatter, inclusive, and will result in more collaboration and less internal competition; more leadership and less management. We are also rationalising our support services which have expanded markedly in recent years. "Our aim is to create One BBC, where people enjoy their job and are inspired and united behind the common purpose of making great programmes and delivering outstanding services."

BBC Chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, said: "Greg’s plans have been discussed at length and in detail with the Board of Governors over the last six weeks. "We need to adapt our organisation structure to encourage creativity, to speed up our decision-making, to communicate more effectively internally and externally, to obtain significant savings and to enhance the value we provide to licence fee payers in a highly competitive world. We believe that Greg’s plans will achieve these objectives."

Dyke, who took over as Director-General on February 1st, will lead a new Executive Committee of 17 directors, bringing him closer to key editorial and programming decisions and bringing the creative community closer to him. Of the 17, nine will be broadcasting and programming heads, compared with four in the existing executive. This is a deliberate shift in the balance of the top level committee towards the programme, creative and channel interests of the BBC. Six Professional Service divisions are created to be responsible for all administrative services across the BBC.

Dyke said: "Cutting duplication across the BBC should make us more agile and more flexible, giving us more money to put into the heart of the BBC - the programmes." A new Leadership Group, involving the top 50 or 60 people in the BBC, will foster greater cross fertilisation of ideas and provide a forum where they can learn more about developments across the whole organisation and the outside world. The plans are the result of a four month review undertaken by a small team that listened to the views of many people throughout the BBC.

Key changes include

the creation of four programming divisions: Drama, Entertainment and Children, Factual and Learning, Sport, and News
abolition of Broadcast and Production directorate HQ

in the areas of sport, childrens’ and education, commissioning and programme-making will be re-integrated a New Media division will develop the BBC’s interactive television and online activities

TV genre commissioners in drama, entertainment and features. These commissioners will work with the television channel controllers to strengthen the BBC’s output in these areas

the disbanding of the Independent Commissioning Group. The BBC values the contribution of independents but in future they will take the same commissioning routes as in-house producers

output guarantees for in-house departments, including Nations and English Regions, and longer term commissions to enable better planning and greater focus on creativity
BBC Radio takes over full responsibility for Radio 5-Live

commissioning Music Production moves into the Radio Division to work more closely with the networks they serve. They will also produce classical music programmes for television

simplified internal trading - the business units will be reduced from 190 to 50

the Corporate Centre, including Policy and Planning and Corporate Affairs, disappear; instead, six Professional Service Divisions will support the BBC overall. They are: Public Policy; Human Resources and Internal Communications; Distribution and Technology; Finance, Property and Business Affairs; Marketing and Communications; and Strategy

reporting structures in the Nations and Regions are unchanged but the division moves one step closer to the Director-General with the director sitting on the Executive Committee

in Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester one operational head will be asked to lead the BBC’s activities in each centre

News, apart from the move of Radio 5-Live commissioning, remains unchanged. BBC Worldwide, BBC World Service and BBC Resources are largely unchanged.

The new structure took effect from yesterday (April 3rd). An implementation team will work with each director to draw up detailed plans within two months, for full implementation by the autumn.