Entertainment For Lively Minds
Lexicon of Hollow Love
I've just been reading Mark Thompson's piece in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/bbc-must-stop-trying...) about his view on the BBC. It's an amazing construct of flim-flam masquerading as insight, a grouping of words that could have easily been about some new inner-city playground or art installation in a public library let alone a national broadcaster. His choice of words and phrases are like those of the detached consultant who expresses his passion for life by wearing a Chelsea shirt when cooking organic burgers on the annual summer barbecue.
Here are my favourites:
public space
paywalls
encounter and engage
uninterrupted flow of investment
open broadcast platforms
build public value
convergence of technologies
beacon of creativity and excellence
The most contradictory statement is this:
"Second, the BBC should concentrate more than ever on being a creator of quality. It should focus even more than it does today on forms of content that most clearly build public value and that are most at risk of being ignored or facing underinvestment. It should take significant further steps towards building the distinctiveness and uniqueness of its programmes and services."
Didn't BBC 6 fulfil this role?
Furthermore to whom is he appealing by writing such a piece in The Guardian? Isn't the readership more likely to be those who despair at such verbal noodlings and inconsistent posturing that cannot be reconcliled with the actions being taken?
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superb discription
"the detached consultant who expresses his passion for life by wearing a Chelsea shirt when cooking organic burgers on the annual summer barbecue."
I like that.
That paragraph quoted above...
"Second, the BBC should concentrate more than ever on being a creator of quality. It should focus even more than it does today on forms of content that most clearly build public value and that are most at risk of being ignored or facing underinvestment. It should take significant further steps towards building the distinctiveness and uniqueness of its programmes and services."
Wot?
What is the trade-off? BBC Drone A wants to invest in one 'form of content' because they can see that it is a great builder of public value but BBC Drone B prefers another because otherwise the form it is in could be ignored or underinvested.
How on earth can any form of objective management be built around these sorts of statements?
Over-promoted, no-nowt twit
Speaking as I find, I gotta say that Thompson always comes across as an over-promoted, no-nowt twit.
There
is clearly some sort of BBC management school of talking bollocks that they are all sent to.
I was watching "Newswatch" on the BBC News channel a couple of weeks back (you know...the 10 minute slot on a Saturday morning where a "licence payer" complains about something trivial and BBC management send along someone to patronise him/her with an answer whilst clearly intending to do nothing different in the future) and that weeks management stooge used the word "touchstone" three times in three consecutive answers.
Never heard it used before and don't want to hear it again. Maybe I should complain?
Re: Mgmt School ...This could have been.....
The University of Bradford School of Management.
I may be mistaken but I think they may have dealings with the BBC a few years ago.....
Memorably...
...summarised in one of the comments on the Guardian website as:
'It reads like something written with fridge-magnet phrases.'
This debate will run whether Thompson likes it or not and I'm looking forward to seeing how he squares this final paragraph in his article...
'The proposed changes we are announcing tomorrow are not a piece of politics – they are rooted in a clear vision of what the BBC exists to do. It is also not a blueprint for a small BBC, or a BBC that is in retreat from digital. That is the last thing the British public want. They want – and I want – a BBC that has the confidence to concentrate on what it does best: which is to deliver services of outstanding quality and originality and to be a beacon of creativity and excellence for audiences everywhere.'
....with the closure of a station that does exactly that.
snip
snip.
The Eye has a regular column called Birt-Speak
where they quote BBC management gobbledygook. eg
I'm not sure I need my TV license funds to be spent on 'metaverse evangelists' thank you very much.
As a regular reader of Private Eye
I'm well aware of the Birtspeak 2.0 clips. What's slightly worrying is that invariably the stuff referenced in the Eye tends to be in-house BBC media such as Ariel or job adverts whereas in this case Thompson has gone overground with this ghoulish verbage. It's a terrible piece of "management-speak" writing by Thompson that merely reinforces Greg Dykes claim that he's "out of touch".
I refer Mr Thompson to the following
typically excellent slice of Word-wide-web:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/corprate-bollocks-have-you-ever-do...
That is complete management
double speak bollocks of the highest order.
I'd like to see which so called so called "personality" could be gotten rid of to save 6Music for a while; Fearne Rotten? Fattie Moyles, J.Ross or the little runt from Top Gear?