“For the life of me I’ve never understood why it spends so much on him”

Talking of BBC pay, the Telegraph's Michael Deacon hit the nail on the head this week when he wrote that getting rid of Gary Lineker - thereby saving £1.35 million - would “not lose the BBC a single viewer”:

Last year, the BBC paid Lineker around £1.35 million. For the life of me I’ve never understood why it spends so much on him. I’m not saying he’s a bad presenter. On the contrary, I think he’s a very good presenter. But the BBC doesn’t actually need a very good presenter to host Match of the Day – for an extremely simple reason.

Which is that it’s football. And, let’s face it, football fans would watch the highlights of Saturday’s big games no matter who was presenting them. They’d watch them even if they were presented by Jedward, Diane Abbott or Larry, the Downing Street cat. Because it’s the goals they’re tuning in for, not the reading of the autocue.

...which is very true. 

MD also mocks DG Tim Davie for insisting that the broadcaster has shown “incredible restraint” with its wage bill. He observes, “Whenever we read about all these stupendous sums of money, it becomes hard to sympathise with complaints about the BBC’s budget being frozen.”

It certainly does.

Sunday morning

I

Well done to Morecambe's very own world-beating boxer Tyson Fury!

The BBC's report on his triumph has a couple of adverts for other BBC output at the bottom of it, which don't seem entirely relevant:

I think I'll pass on those.

II

Talking of advertising on the BBC, the BBC is hardly free of adverts as they deluge viewers with plugs for other BBC programmes between programmes. 

But at least they don't put them in the middle of programmes....

....except, that is, if your watching the news and see a plug for, say, an upcoming Panorama disguised as a news report. 

The Mail on Sunday claims however, that it goes a lot further than that. They suggest that the BBC is using Strictly Come Dancing as a ''walking advert for other shows'' as eight out of this year's 15 celebrity contestants are already working for the BBC. Did they enlist an EastEnders actress because EastEnders's viewing figures have falling to an all-time low? Did they enroll one of the new team captains on Question Of Sport because that show's new line-up hasn't proved a hit so far? Are they promoting new Newsround presenter Rhys Stephenson because ''sources say that he is being lined up to be a future superstar of the network''? Is BBC Breakfast's Dan Walker walker on because of the ratings battle with ITV's Good Morning Britain? etc, etc.

I wouldn't put it past them.

III

And talking of BBC Breakfast, [h/t Guest Who], it's charm all round this Sunday morning: 

Rob Chisholm [BBC viewer]: Glad that BBC Breakfast doesn't have Naga Munchetty on the sofa again. It's a far more pleasant and professional programme without her snide & irritating comments. Long may the lack of Naga Munchetty on our screens continue. 

Naga Munchetty [BBC presenter]: Ah Rob. Thank goodness there's someone else who is also 'snide & irritating' out there. Phew! Long may your own lack of pleasantness continue. X

I see from his Twitter profile that Rob is, among other things, a Royal British Legion Rider and a an RAF Veteran and that his 'pinned tweet' recommends a 'Coffee and Cake To Go For Paramedic Heroes', plus he has a union flag in his profile. No wonder they don't like each other!

IV

The Mail on Sunday also reports that Match of the Day ''WILL continue to show Premier League teams take the knee each week - despite a growing amount of players choosing not to perform the gesture''. A BBC spokesperson said: ‘Match Of The Day’s editorial brief is to provide coverage of all aspects of the Premier League. The ongoing anti-racism statements made by all teams is an important part of the current football narrative.’ Ah, the BBC and their narratives!

Next Month

 

If you stayed up to watch the highlights of Crystal Palace v Wolves on Match of the Day you'll doubtless have caught Gary Lineker putting on an earnest expression and saying: 

Starting on Monday is LGBT-Plus History Month, and across the BBC, we'll be telling the stories of sportspeople who've helped shape attitudes.

So that's February '-ism' taken care of.

Transforming the range of pundits on 'Match of the Day'

Lord Hall (to be sawn in half and stitched together with half of Fran Unsworth by April 2019)

Sophie Jarvis, Programmes Director & Head of the Female Founders Forum at the Entrepreneurs Network, isn't impressed with the BBC's latest initiative to have a 50:50 gender split on expert voices by this time next year:

• The BBC are introducing a 50:50 gender quota on the experts they have on their shows. How demeaning. I would never want to be asked on a show because of my gender. I want to be asked on because of my knowledge and ability to present ideas.
• We should strive for meritocracy not gynecocracy. We should also look at why there aren’t more female experts instead of imposing a quota.
• An unintended consequence is that it will be assumed that any woman that now appears on the BBC will only be on there because of her vagina not her brain. This is OPPOSITE of feminism.
• An interesting comparison is the caste quota imposed on doctors in India. It is assumed by many that those of a lower caste must be a sub-standard doctor because they only have their job due to their caste.
• And I’ll be discussing this on BBC World tomorrow at 13.30pm! Let’s hope I got asked on for the right reasons...

One of the replies she received asked an obvious question:

Does that include Woman's Hour every day on Radio 4?

Well, the BBC has already thought of that:

It also rules out programmes “which already have a focus on gender”, such as Woman’s Hour, which “would not be expected to achieve a 50:50 balance because of the very nature of the programme’s editorial remit”. 

*******

Of course, it could (and should) be argued that Lord Hall and Ms Unsworth are actually failing shamefully on the equality and diversity front here and are guilty of appalling transphobia. (Maybe they should both be no-platformed as a result)? 

Why not have a 10:10:10:10:10:10:10:10:10:10 split to ensure that transgender men, transgender women, bigender people, intersex people, genderfluid people, agender people, genderqueer people and other gender types not mentioned are featured as experts as well as just cisgender men and cisgender women? 

Yes, the obvious downside of that is that studios for programmes like Match of the Day would be absolutely heaving with opinionated (if experience-free) pundits of every gender (and non-gender) imaginable, but at least it would prove the BBC's seriousness when it comes to transforming (pun intended) the range of voices across the BBC. 

A few suggestions for Danny Cohen

Further to yesterday's post about those three diversity-seeking senior directors and controllers at the BBC who are going to ensure more women, more gays and more blacks on BBC comedy shows and dramas....

It's now the turn of Match of the Day to face BBC Director of Television Danny Cohen's diversity-loving ire. 

There are too many white men on MOTD he says, and that's gotta change. 

I agree, but I think he needs to go much, much further. 

For starters, there are far too many ex-footballers on Match of the Day. 

I propose that the UK's Olympic women's curling team should take over as pundits, in the interests of diversity. 

They drew large TV audiences, and attracted a lot of viewers to their sport after all. They'd be perfect to replace Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen (and aren't there too many 'Alans' on MOTD too, Danny?). I'd happily watch Eve Muirhead explaining the offside rule and Anna Sloan slagging off Manchester United's defence. 

Gary Lineker - white, male, straight, an ex-footballer - would have to go too. Obviously. He's just so wrong for the job, on all four counts.

Clare Balding would naturally be at the forefront of the BBC's mind when it comes to finding a replacement for him, but - alongside the programme's new pundits - that wouldn't solve Danny Cohen's 'too many whites' problem, would it? Maybe Christine Ohuruogu then? 

Perhaps Danny should start looking even closer to home though. 

You may have noticed that he and Ben Stephenson and Charlotte Moore - and the rest of top BBC TV and radio  bigwigs - are all hideously white too. 

Maybe he should start by sacking himself, and appointing The Sky at Night's Maggie Aderin-Pocock instead. 

She'd make a great BBC Director of TV. She could scrap The One Show for starters and replace it with The Sky at Night for example.

I'd be up for that. Onwards to maximum diversity at the BBC!