Parliamentary Inquiry: CFM lets rip

[french frank]

A letter in the new Radio Times complains about 'Auntie's' declining standards, praises her 'love of art programmes' and a few other things, but is 'cross' that 'one of her favourite sons (Radio3) keeps taking chunks of Auntie's money to serve his own minuscule, private audience.'

So the RW effect isn't even working.

It's an interesting argument, I suspect chosen by the editor, in view of recent press coverage, to provoke replies from the indignant 'minuscule, private audience'.

And we know how much he 'takes'/is allowed and spends: I would really like to know how much of it goes on the Proms (the more of the budget goes on the Proms, the less there is to spend on Radio 3's routine schedule); but the BBC are 'tight-lipped' on this. It's never very clear exactly who is being tight-lipped when FOI information requests are refused. Radio 3 or higher management?

[amateur51]

It's an interesting argument, I suspect chosen by the editor, in view of recent press coverage, to provoke replies from the indignant 'minuscule, private audience'.

And we know how much he 'takes'/is allowed and spends: I would really like to know how much of it goes on the Proms (the more of the budget goes on the Proms, the less there is to spend on Radio 3's routine schedule); but the BBC are 'tight-lipped' on this. It's never very clear exactly who is being tight-lipped when FOI information requests are refused. Radio 3 or higher management?

You may have explained this before french frank, in which case I apologise for asking but what is the rationale behind the BBC's denial of this quite reasonable FOI request?

Please don't tell me it's commercial sensitivity

[Flosshilde]

French classical station France-Musique has published an article on its website about all this: http://www.francemusique.fr/actu-mus...en-crise-20326

Goodness - just imagine R3's website carrying a story about a European radio station!

[Bryn]

Hmm. How about a FOI request to the Beeb regarding the percentage of FOI requests that it receives but turns down? The organisation really does not seem to like being open with its paymasters, its UK watchers and listeners, does it?

[Flosshilde]

You may have explained this before french frank, in which case I apologise for asking but what is the rationale behind the BBC's denial of this quite reasonable FOI request?

Please don't tell me it's commercial sensitivity

Their excluysion from the provisions of FoI is nonsensical - they are a non-commercial publicly funded organisation & should have the same degree of accountability as other public orgfanisations.

[french frank]

You may have explained this before french frank, in which case I apologise for asking but what is the rationale behind the BBC's denial of this quite reasonable FOI request?

Please don't tell me it's commercial sensitivity

The 'rationale' is this: the BBC is rated as a 'hybrid' organisation - a public service which 'operates' within a commercial market. It was therefore given exemption (a 'derogation') which allowed it not to disclose certain information which a commercial broadcaster is not required to disclose.

So far ... but as I understand it, the derogation states that only information "held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature" must be disclosed following an FOI request. Erm, yes. So if the BBC deems that the information is held for any of those 3 purposes, it will probably clam up. And it's amazing what they will claim comes under those headings. The BBC itself appears to have restated its exemption as that which 'informs programme-making'. And that covers anything it doesn't want to disclose. How many people listened to a particular programme? - okay, if it bombed the listening figures will be used to decide whether it gets a second series &c. But are listening figures held for the purpose of journalism, art or literature?

I could write a thesis on this - and it was one of the matters that was raised in FoR3's submission to the CMSSC - the BBC abuses the system, and the BBC Trust doesn't want to know.

[french frank]

Global Radio and RadioCentre had their day in court last Tuesday. Unfortunately, Classic FM wasn't included in the invitation and GR and RC had other BBC targets in their sights, mainly Radio 1 and Radio 2. Radio 3 got a few brief mentions from Global (which owns Classic FM), but no more than a minute or two out of a two-hour session. They did get in the fact that Radio 3 had copied Classic FM with the 'active encouragement' of the BBC Trust. True - that is how R3 management interpreted the review, and the Trust didn't have enough knowledge to understand what it was agreeing to.

The session was about 'BBC Radio', and one of the Committee members suggested that, compared with television, radio was the 'poor relation' as far as scrutiny goes. If that's true, Radio 3 is the poor relation when scrutiny is focused on BBC Radio: none of the members took up any of the points made by Global about R3: the short pieces, the charts, the polls, the phone-ins ...

I had some difficulty with the software to view the webcast, and it's really not worth it. Very few interesting points cropped up. I did get the feeling that some members were a bit hostile - but perhaps they'll be even more so when the BBC's turn comes.

If anyone is curious in how the session passed, it's here.

[aeolium]

Not sure where to post this, but methods of funding for the BBC have I think cropped up in this discussion. Here is a sample list of different funding methods and costs of public broadcasting around the world:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26546570

It's interesting to note that only three other countries have the same model as the UK one, i.e. TV licence with no advertising or subscription, and Finland and Iceland have recently changed from TV licence to funding through taxation.

[remdataram]

Goodness - just imagine R3's website carrying a story about a European radio station!

Just imagine any BBC radio station or TV channel carrying ANY story about Europe - unless it's a disaster or Cameron is involved. Conversely, if a 'Celebrity' in America splits with their Partner we get headlines over here. No wonder public opinion is anti EC as well as anything Cultural.