BBC - Commissioning - BBC Vision frees up money for increased on-screen spend

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BBC Vision frees up money for increased on-screen spend

George Entwistle, Director BBC Vision, today unveiled a radical re-organisation of BBC Vision and Rights & Business Affairs that will stimulate new ways of working and help free-up significantly increased content spend. 

Completing BBC Vision’s original ambition to unify all parts of the business, the new structures and new ways of working will benefit the audience by maximising on-screen spend, while reducing internal costs.

Changes within the business already announced under DQF, and enhanced by Vision’s reorganisation, will free up £27million for reinvestment in 2013/14.  Simplifying the business should also ensure improved commissioning and business effectiveness for all suppliers, both in-house and independent.

The new Vision structure aims to simplify business processes to create one core operational spine responsible for supporting the BBC’s genre strategy and to bring together Channels, Platforms, Commissioning and Production into a single whole under a unified Vision HQ.  While keeping Commissioning and Production strictly apart as two separate editorial functions, the new structure will deliver business support efficiently and effectively to all sides of the business.

The new genre-based working model will also allow better alignment with the emerging structures of BBC UK Network Production and will facilitate the creation and operation of genre boards, which will be used to align editorial and commercial strategy across BBC public service, BBC Worldwide and all other commercial partners. 

In the new business core, activity will be structured around three new genres: Knowledge and Daytime; Comedy and Entertainment; and Drama, Film & Acquisitions.  Smaller central business teams will be retained in Vision and Rights and Business Affairs to ensure the genres are working to the same high standards.

By creating one single operational spine for each of the genre groups, which will service both Production and Commissioning, Vision will reduce duplication, minimise internal transaction costs and deliver a more effective business model.

As part of the restructure, three new senior Controller of Business roles will be created.  Reporting to Bal Samra, each will lead on business affairs for one of the three main genre groups and will be responsible for all the key business functions within their genre. The Controllers of Business will work in new leadership teams alongside the Commissioning and Production Genre Controllers in each of the key genre groups.

George Entwistle, Director of BBC Vision, said  “The key to the creative future of the BBC is to ensure good people and good money spend less time tied up in process and more time creating the very highest quality television programmes and multiplatform output. The hard choices we’ve already made through DQF, plus the radical new ways of working implicit in this reorganization, will help simplify what we do – freeing people and money to concentrate on serving our audiences.”

Bal Samra, Director of Vision Operations and Director of Right and Business Affairs, and Pat Younge, Chief Creative Office, BBC Vision Productions, have worked with George Entwistle to help shape the future structure of the division.

Bal Samra will continue to be responsible for all Vision Operations and Rights and Business Affairs, while taking full responsibility for the production management teams across the genres. He will also sponsor the changes required to create the new genre business teams and central roles.  

Bal said, “We have worked hard to find smarter ways of working that will deliver savings for reinvestment into content.  The new structure delivers a more effective and efficient way of working that supports our genre strategy and reflects the realities of doing business in the ever changing production market.”

Pat Younge’s new role will see him freed up from operational obligations to focus on the creative leadership of all network TV production in Drama, Factual, Entertainment and Comedy.  Pat will continue to line manage the key production controllers and editorial staff in Vision’s in-house production teams, and will be responsible for driving creative standards and innovation in content creation for all platforms.

Pat said “Eight BAFTAs, the biggest haul for any production business, shows BBC in-house production is a real creative powerhouse. These changes will make us a simpler and more creative place to work, which will help us retain and recruit the best talent in the business.”

Vision’s new structure will be implemented in phases, with changes complete by 2013.  The recruitment process for the new Controller of Business posts will start immediately, with appointments due in the summer.