A Visit to Dixons

I have just come out of the presentation given by Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC at which he announced potential job losses of 3,000 and a big move to Manchester. These are my notes.

“For many people the BBC feels a long way away and very Southern” “We need to change our tone of voice and attract new talent in other parts of the country”



Mark talked about the importance of being more local and referred to “the local idea”

Included in his vision is a transformational shift of the BBC’s culture to a simpler more focused organization. He talked about the BBC having a central role in building digital Britain. The BBC can and should lead and succeed in the digital revolution. We will spend a higher proportion of the license money on programmes than ever before.

He wants fewer layers of management and said that at its simplest the BBC is a relationship between audience-creativity-content. There are barriers to creativity, he said, very little has changed. There are still endless meetings and emails. We need better forward planning and to delegate more to front line teams. Multi-skilling will be important if we are to become more efficient. We will spend less money on process and more money on content and reduce duplication. Managers at all levels will need to be more self sufficient. He would like to see better leadership and tougher management of poor performance.

Finally, he seemed to draw much about the digital age from a visit to Dixons. This is worrying if ever you have been there!