Ben Fellows Director General Of The BBC?

by Ben Fellows

“SHOCKING, REPREHENSIBLE AND DISGRACEFUL!”

BBC Director General George Entwistle resigned last night just 54 days after being appointed because of “unacceptable shoddy journalism” on his watch. It came eight days after a Newsnight broadcast wrongly implicated former Tory Treasurer Lord McAlpine in a child abuse ring and just hours after a bruising appearance on Radio 4’s Today programme, where he was humiliated by his own presenter.

So good riddance to George “I was too busy to watch the programme” Entwistle, and enter the new Director General but who will it be? Perhaps another Etonian, Ed Richards the current OFCOM boss – which has conflict of interest and corruption writ large. Or a banker maybe? Whoever is to be the new Director General you can guarantee that it won’t be somebody with actual broadcasting experience of twenty plus years. No it will be another inside job as Lord Patten (Kenneth Clarks best mate) has already announced on today’s The Andrew Marr Show – he is planning to break the BBC Trust’s own recruitment policy, as laid down by the Royal Charter of the BBC, and shoe horn in another good ole boy within a couple of weeks.

In light of the paradigm shift clearly occurring throughout society I’m going to throw my hat into the ring as I plum for the top job. This is what I would do if I was asked to be the new Director General of the BBC. What’s makes me so special? Well, I’ve been in entertainment and broadcasting for 28 years. As an investigative journalist I’ve broken some of the biggest news stories in the country such as: Cash For Questions, Exposing the London 2012 Olympic security fiasco as the Olympic Whistle Blower, exposing paedophillia in the wider entertainment industry and my own personal experience with politicians. I’ve been a presenter, an award winning actor and now I’m a serious professional filmmaker albeit at the lower budget end of the industry. In fact I’d even go as far as saying I’m probably over qualified because the “real” future Director General probably won’t have any experience whatsoever of broadcasting or journalism. Oh, and the new D.G will probably be male, did I mention how sexist the BBC still is? 

The BBC, like all organisations and corporations nowadays, has become an overblown behemoth with a centralised command structure which has more banking and city experience than it does broadcasting. That is why the banks are collapsing because they’re simply too big; controlled by people who don’t understand what they’re doing. They are just greedy people addicted to money! The BBC even now hires paid interns, not from media collages and universities from the around the country but ex bankers from the city who are routinely rotated into the corporation through the revolving door of privilege. Is it any wonder the corporation has failed.

Firstly the BBC Trust must be open and completely transparent not only in its recruitment policy but in its own board members – who all, without exception, have conflicts of interests and over blown salaries galore. Take the Chairman Lord Patten, on a £110,000 per year for two to three days of actual work per week, who has no broadcasting experience other than of being interviewed about his various roles as a public servant. 

Of course in light of this Lord Patten clearly isn’t qualified to hold interviews regarding the recruitment of the new D.G. Lord Patten should do the decent and honourable thing and resign. Better for him to resign now before we start looking into what the board really should have done.

For example: Firstly, why O why didn’t the unqualified Lord Patten check the programme himself before broadcast? He should have at least sent a memo to every employee of the news division stating that the board now needs to double check all content to include child abuse allegations. That’s not interference on an editorial level, it would only have been temporary and it’s common sense. Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot. He’s not qualified to be BBC Trust Chairman. Secondly, the board and he did pick George Entwistle and look how well that turned out. 

The Board needs to be dissolved immediately putting the BBC in the hands of the government, until professionals, like me with 28 years of actual real broadcasting experience can be hired.

So, first on my agenda as newly appointed Director General of the BBC, in my dreams,  will be to completely reorganise the structure from the top down. The BBC needs to be broken down into its component parts and managed by separate heads reporting directly to the Director General; with no chairman or board but a real independent BBC Council made up of license fee payers who would be responsible for putting the views of the general public to the BBC. The council would hold meetings throughout the year. Members would be picked via a national lottery and would participate on a voluntary basis being replaced every three years. 

Everyone with any experience in broadcasting knows that the cornerstone of any television station is its news division. So I will split the news division up from the BBC on radio, on TV and online. Then devolve powers to the regions. So every region around the country will be responsible for its own local news, hiring from their communities. Then stories will be networked for national coverage due to public interest. I would get an editor and chief with a real news background in running newspapers where they run the risk of being sued on a daily basis and are basically, in the main, supremely good at their jobs. They at least would put in a structure which would be a real chain of command for all editorial content for all the regions before any and all stories aired. 

The BBC has to stop interviewing its own correspondents. It’s lazy journalism which has led to the ultimate criticism – that Newsnight journalists let a bunch of students from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism do their research for them. You’d think that what amounts to a “student” online newspaper run by a group of middle class nit wits would have meant that work submitted would be tripled checked by BBC journalists.  They didn’t and then BBC journalists allowed the editor from The Bureau to tweet that a Conservative member of parliament would be named in that evening’s Newsnight programme. That is shocking, reprehensible and disgraceful.

The BBC’s news content needs to be broader, taking in more of alternative news views to mainstream issues rather than just spinning government edicts with no other real alternative opinions. One of the reasons that the BBC, along with all major broadcasters around the world, is losing audiences is because the internet with all its views means that people can learn different sides to the stories and make up their own minds about what’s concerning to them.

This is how the BBC is to regain its reputation – by taking its proverbial head from out of its elitest ass and listen to what television license fee payers actually want. 

Broadly speaking this model is how each division of the BBC should be operating from entertainment, drama, children’s programming, education, science and religious programming. All the producing of productions would be brought back into the BBC instead having it run by so called “independent” production companies run by ex BBC staff  on the gravy train.  

I would also put in place a recruitment and training policy that would mean from school leavers up – anybody can apply for a job at the BBC, go into the BBC collage and then university to graduate with a degree in broadcasting journalism. They would be assessed on lots of different practical levels and on all aspects of broadcasting before being rotated into the corporation at every level. This would immediately change the look of the BBC -  reflecting the wonderful diversity of our nation and giving voice to the general public rather than disenfranchising them and only recruiting from favourite elitest universities.    

New blood combined with bringing back the truly great producers, directors, editors out of retirement or rather unemployment to reset the standard with which the BBC has been so known for.  

So what are my chances of being hired as the new Director General of the BBC? Realistically? Sub-zero. Nil. Not even when hell freezes over due to global cooling. In other words there’s not a hope in hell for me or anybody like me. But why not?

Well, for starters I didn’t have a privileged up-bringing by an elitest family. I didn’t go to the right university and my dad isn’t a Dimbleby, Magnusson or Humpries so I wouldn’t even be shoe horned in through nepotism. I’m not running OFCOM; and as a BBC commentator jokingly remarked when I asked them about me becoming the new Director General – “If you’re not white, you’r not right!”. Perhaps there might be some truth in that statement because the BBC has one of the worst diversity records in broadcasting, not only for on camera presenters but also management and staff. The one exception being front of house security, need I say more! It would be nice to think that the BBC represented the people who funded it but perhaps I’m hoping for too much. I’m hoping that at least they will bring in a female Director General with masses of actual broadcasting experience, but it will probably be some ex lawyer turned TV executive who isn’t qualified with actual broadcasting experience; who will flounder just like George in the face of the next scandal to hit this most perverted of family members “Auntie”.    

Let’s face facts. Even though I have 28 years experience across the entertainment industry it won’t be me or anyone like me.  It would be a miracle to get my internet radio show on BBC Radio or perhaps head an investigative journalism programme considering that my journalistic prowess and integrity isn’t in question.

So – say good bye to George Entwistle and hello to the next elite faceless executive. The downward spiral of the BBC is set to continue whomever is appointed to be Director General. The BBC could be so much better and be once again a trusted broadcaster, albeit without the reverence that the organisation demands currently from its license fee payers. Right now the BBC is lying by the side of the road injured like an animal which has just been hit by a car, waiting for a passerby to take it to the RSPCA before it breaths its final breath.