For all its squealing about budget limitations the BBC seems to have no problem finding the dosh for those little creature comforts for the staff:
The BBC is spending up to £500,000 on a major refit of its £1 billion new headquarters because staff have complained their state-of-the art surroundings ‘lack character’.
The high-spec London HQ was only opened in June – four years behind schedule and £55 million over budget.
But the Corporation has already decided to revamp two floors of New Broadcasting House to make them ‘more creative and vibrant’ – following a string of gripes from staff. Critics have branded the move a ‘ludicrous’ use of the licence fee.
We have decided to make these changes in response to strong feedback from television staff that the floors did not feel like creative spaces and lacked character. It was something people felt particularly strongly about when we moved in.’
So…it’s to help those creative juices flow is it?
Funny….the BBC also says this:
A BBC spokesman said the changes were cosmetic and that the revamp was confined to communal areas. He said the floors had originally been designed for World Service and news staff who had been relocated elsewhere.
He added: ‘The BBC must ensure it continues to produce fantastic television programmes for licence-fee-payers so some changes are being made to create the most effective working environment possible for staff.’
Hang on….the areas are ‘communal areas’ and were originally for the World Service…..so not their actual work spaces then…and just where did all these creative types hang out before they were moved to these floors at Salford before the World Service vacated? Must have been a tremendously inspirational space that was fully compliant with the needs of the creative community, one which empowered and enabled them to bedazzle us with the twists and turns in the plot lines of yet more cooking, antiques and house programmes as well as remakes of the Clangers, The Wombles, and infinite reincarnations of Doctor Who, Top Gear and HIGNFY.
A ‘living standards crisis’?
Not at the BBC obviously.
To the BBC, money doesnt grow on trees. It grows on TV licence payers
I think the money trees theory is the right one, David – they are just so out of touch with reality in their cushy world they could not possibly make the connection with licence fee payers and the blighted existence many of them have to endure.
You are forced to pay for them and they spend it on what they think is important. Themselves. Like all Socialists their sense of entitlement is bottomless. As for people spending their own money (and earning that money by providing others with things and services they want) what a ghastly idea. It is the sort of thing a grocer’s daughter would say. Just say how much you care about the poor and carry on stuffing your face.
BBC = Stalinist Parasite
Does the BBC not produce a balance sheet every year: or is it like the EU. I’ve never seen or heard of one. Does the government not require one?
As with all Balance sheets dubious and contentious items of expenditure are easily hidden under general headings. Local Authorities are as bad as the BBC in this respect.
Could you even envisage the cost of that, Sports Personality of the Year, white elephant
last night … obscene … talk about “flogging the dead horse” it was just embarrassing, put that with the S African main dealer money pit …
BBC? … its time to go
Sorry, I have just looked up ‘BBC Balance sheet’ on Google Lots of figures but no detailed info. Just as The General says a lot can be hidden.
‘Lots of figures but no detailed info’
Eventually those special projects budgets can add up and get noticed.
Be funny if the Men Who Stare At Goats brigade saw a funding cut on their mighty efforts to get a wind-chime noise piped around the cubicles instead.
‘Naaaaaaaahm…. to the gorup hug zone, girls!’
It’s part of a plan to become a ‘champagne’ workers cooperative. The voice of the nation ‘Salford’ the epicentre of European rights. I wonder if the new (legal) LGBTQRX Toilets are as ‘communal’ as Marx would have stated. It’s a long way from Hampstead wine bars, so they took the wine-bars with ’em up north. Hurrahh.
Creative juices – ha
There’s more creativity in any given minute of HBO’s output than in an entire year’s worth of BBC ‘product’.
Can I just swap the BBC for HBO? Please. Can I take my £145 and just swap to the far better US station? Its my £145. Why don’t I get the choice?
unique
juːˈniːk/
adjective
1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
“the funding is unique in near any media context”
noun: unique; plural noun: uniques
1. a unique person or thing.