Donnish and diplomatic, but he's still the man who wields the axe

Published on Thursday 27 September 2007 01:03

'IF WE ARE looking for gaps in the way BBC journalism addresses Scotland, we would say that the regional gap is a big one," says the BBC's director general Mark Thompson.

The BBC's head is not displeased with Reporting Scotland or Newsnight Scotland - even despite Jeremy Paxman's observation that giving way at 11pm to the regional version of the show was a "bloody irritation".

Instead, Thompson is musing on the "central belt" bias he believes the Corporation has suffered from in the past.

I meet Thompson in a hospitality "green room" on the first floor of the BBC's new 188 million headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. While much of the BBC often opts for a "corporate casual" dress code of open-neck shirt, the DG - as he is known by staff - is wearing a smart dark business suit and tie.

Famously clever - he has a first in English from Merton College, Oxford - he strikes a slightly donnish air on occasion, sweeping the air with hand motions before articulating his thought.

However, he has a practical view on what he wants BBC news in Scotland to become.

"The idea, certainly on broadband, of figuring out ways of covering the regions of Scotland, I definitely think is a very strong one.

"In Scotland we are hoping to launch, subject to BBC Trust approval, on broadband, services which bring you news, information and views from Scotland's regions. Now that's a new service for licence-payers in Scotland."

Thompson makes it clear he has no plans to tinker with the 6:30pm Reporting Scotland show, for example by adding regional opt-outs to different parts of the country. He regards one of the programme's strengths as its "very strong national identity".

Instead, his thoughts revolve around a new tier of regional broadband news services, with content provided by video journalists scattered to locations further afield than the central belt.

This is not a new idea for BBC Scotland - Glasgow executives have been rehearsing plans for an ultra-local broadband service since 2005. However the proposal, denounced by newspaper groups as a distortion of the free market, was thought to have been an early casualty of the BBC's below-budget licence fee settlement.

Given that the BBC is looking to make an annual 3 per cent in savings over the next five years, I ask how this new broadband news service will be paid for.

"It's partly going to come from running our existing operations inside Scotland slightly more efficiently. To be honest, in most organisations, certainly private sector organisations, the idea that you go for 2.5 or 3 per cent efficiencies per year is standard practice. The BBC makes an unusually large amount of noise on this topic. I'm not saying it's easy, it's hard for everyone. But I think people who've worked inside the BBC and outside the BBC know that it's less unusual than one's colleagues think it is."

Clearly, he would appear prepared for hostilities from both the National Union of Journalists and BECTU over the scores of jobs expected to go in news journalism as part of the budget drive.

The regional news horizon is of particular interest to the BBC for two reasons. One is the fact that ITV is wants to cut its annual regional news and current affairs budget of around 90 million by 35 million to 40 million a year (STV, owned separately to the ITV network, is not affected).The other is the establishment by Alex Salmond of a commission to look into the future of broadcasting north of the Border.

First to ITV. Surely Michael Grade, the flamboyant former BBC chairman who jumped ship to ITV only last November, has handed his BBC rivals a market advantage by imposing such swingeing cuts?

"I don't want to criticise ITV's strategy, it has got particular economic pressures on it and in Michael they have a very tough-minded, very commercial executive chairman," Thompson says.

But surely ITV's cuts programme is tantamount to unravelling a large part of its public-service offering?

"I think we are going to have to carry a bit more of the burden, we are very keen to do so. We think it is a real strength and we think it also in a way conveys competitive advantage."

On Salmond's broadcasting commission, Thompson deadpans with a politician's answer. "We welcome the commission, and of course will absolutely help it in its deliberations in any way we can." Will this inevitably invoke the chimera of the Tartan Six, the substitute for network bulletins which became such a totem for nationalists in the late 1990s and early 2000s?

"I wouldn't leap to the conclusion that the debate is likely to focus around any one programme, necessarily," he laughs.

Onslaughts from politicians and broadcasting rivals presumably come with the 788,000-a-year patch of being DG. But wasn't he irked by the observation from one of his own stars, Jeremy Paxman, that switching from the national version of Newsnight to a Scots edition on BBC2 Scotland at 11pm every night was a "bloody irritation"?

"I used to be an output editor of Newsnight and I can absolutely see that the practicalities of having to finish particular item or a particular interview on the clock at a certain moment so you can execute the opt out is one more thing to think about," comes the carefully modulated response.

I persist by asking wouldn't it be refreshing if Paxman - who used the Edinburgh TV festival in August to denounce his employers as "Stalinist" - actually spoke up in favour of the corporation from time to time?

Thompson is clearly amused and his lofty frame cranes forward, his hand performing that repeated sweeping motion - like dusting an invisible surface - as he searches for the right words.

"I'm always happy to speak up in favour of the corporation. The BBC is a very open organisation and that is a good thing, not a bad thing."