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I recently bumped into an old BBC colleague. I’ll call him John, though that’s not his real name. John didn’t look happy. He said he’d left the BBC, but was finding it tough getting a job outside. John was fed up because a prospective employer had just told him they considered him “institutionalised”.
John explained that employers outside the BBC didn’t think he could adjust to life in the private sector. That life at the BBC had made him accustomed to working within a rigid, bureaucratic culture.
I felt sorry for John and I understood his problem.
I spent more than 14 years at the BBC as a TV journalist and producer. I helped set up BBC South East Today at Tunbridge Wells and also worked for the BBC in London. I then left to set up my own video production company. It may be tough out here in the real world, but I don’t regret leaving the BBC. Being your own boss is liberating. You make your own decisions. Compared with this, the BBC can feel very suffocating.
Perhaps it’s because of the huge number of managers at the BBC.
For example, over the years I worked with many talented and creative people, but also came across some rather mediocre types.
In the real world, these people wouldn’t survive for long. But in the BBC they seem to thrive. In fact the BBC often deals with them by promoting them. Many disappear into the bowels of some big BBC building where they have a senior position, large salary and generous expenses. No-one’s quite sure what these people do, but I estimate there must be thousands of them.
A couple of weeks ago the BBC admitted that 30 senior managers had claimed expenses of £410,000 over the last three years. This included dinners and lunches. And that’s just the top 30, what about the thousands of other managers?
This revelation prompted a number of people, including Griff Rhys Jones to observe that the BBC has too many middle managers and too little emphasis on creative talent.
Last month the government fired a warning shot across the BBC’s bows. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the broadcaster has been responsible for “extraordinary and outrageous” waste and needed to recognise the “very constrained financial situation” the country is now in. He hinted that the compulsory licence of £145.50 which we all have to pay the BBC may be reduced.
The BBC has countered by saying it will cut costs and reform itself. However in my experience, it’s usually the wrong things that are cut. Front line journalists and programme makers are told to make do with less; the cuts never seem to touch the legions of mediocre managers. Or as Sky TV scathing remarked, “The BBC’s proposed cuts are designed to attract attention to small changes while disguising the reality of maintaining the status quo".
Cutting the BBC may not be popular with everyone, and certainly not with BBC staff. But in the long run it may help them. If it makes them less “institutionalised” it will be a blessing.
My old friend John would probably agree.
Graham Majin is a former BBC Assistant Editor and Programme Maker. He is currently Head of Video Marketing and Video Production at Kent based Video Production Company www.kershmedia.co.uk and www.kwikvid.com
