Friday 16 September 2016

BBC Wales the future is bleak.

The news BBC  Wales is braced for belt-tightening with the broadcaster facing the challenge of delivering savings of £9m a year by 2022.
Clearly there is a spin to give the impression that there will be no cut in the quality of programmes with the announcement that Six senior roles are to go – although three will be created – as part of a major shake-up with commissioning for television, radio and online coming together for the first time.
Culture secretary Karen Bradley said the new obligations to reveal details of stars’ pay would help make the BBC a more “transparent and open” organisation as she launched a draft charter which also confirmed changes to the BBC’s historic system of governance.
The move to a new headquarters in Central Square in Cardiff is expected to deliver savings of up to £3m. Though we all know that estimates on such costs are usually way out and they will spiral before completion.
BBC Wales Director Rhodri Talfan Davies told staff of the annual 2% savings target needed to live within the “cash flat” licence agreement.
 “The changes are designed to make BBC Wales more creative, more collaborative and more open. Our audiences are changing fast and we must too.
“I believe these changes will simplify the way we work, speed up decision-making and give our commissioners the freedom to place even bigger bets and to explore new ways of serving all our audiences.”
 “Across the BBC, our savings in this current Charter period stand at about £1.6bn. Our principle, as always, will be to protect our services as far as possible, and minimise the impact on audiences.
“So, of course, we will push even harder on efficiency.”
I wonder  how deep the distinction  is between programmes made in Wales (Sherlock,Dr Who) and made for Wales (Weather Man Walking and can;t think of anything else beyond sport the news and current affairs).

There  appears to be a government campaign to emasculate the BBC which and they have cleverly come up with  new rules to force it to reveal the pay of its on-air talent.
Culture secretary Karen Bradley said the new obligations to reveal details of stars’ pay would help make the BBC a more “transparent and open” organisation as she launched a draft charter which also confirmed changes to the BBC’s historic system of governance.
The objective seems to be to give the impression our licence fee is being spent on overpaid talent and that the BBC can make savings that way.
I have no problem with questioning whether people are being paid to much and with efficiency saving throughout the Beeb there will be no loss in programme quality.
Is this a smokescreen however in order to end the Licence Fee and turn the BBC into a subscription service , leading viewers to move to SKY and the manipulations of the Puppet Master Rupert Murdoch who seems to be in control of such a policy.
What this means for Wales is unclear but I can't see Murdoch making programmes in Wales (OK Stella) and certainly not programmes fir Wakes.
The recent history of S4C has shown that cuts start with adverse publicity, followed by savings and Cuts  , which results in a loss of viewers and more averse publicity ,followed by savings and cuts...
In five years time will BBC Wales cease to exist as an entity  in his own right  rather than a set of buildings making programmes for a UK audience and  nothing about Wales itself.

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