Today's BBC - the envy of the world?


Envy? Try some other 'Es' ... Expensive, egregious and ennobled.

The source of that 'envy of the world' quote is here.
Photo (c) 2007 On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
The Guardian article behind my first link raises an interesting point when it says:

The glimpse at what BBC executives claim as expenses and receive in terms of corporate hospitality does not include anything that relates to "journalism, art or literature".

This is because of exemptions within the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000, as explained on the BBC website:

It is important to bear this in mind when considering the Freedom of Information Act and how it applies to the BBC. The Act does not apply to the BBC in the way it does to most public authorities in one significant respect. It recognises the different position of the BBC (as well as Channel 4, S4C and the Gaelic Media Service) by providing that it covers information “held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. This means the Act does not apply to information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output (TV, radio, online etc), or information that supports and is closely associated with these activities.

As the BBC's main purpose is to create output for TV, radio, online etc this means the great part of the BBC's activities are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. An interesting situation when one considers that the BBC's annual income is more than £3 billion, and that the income is raised by a legally enforced poll tax.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/about.shtml
4:35 pm
Pliable said…
From the BBC Radio 3 Messageboard:

My view of the good Sir Nicholas is forever coloured by a lunch I had with him 20 years ago, when he was editor of, I believe, that soaraway publication Early Music News.

Lunch was on my expense account and, if I remember rightly, Mr Kenyon (as he was then) ordered the most expensive items on the menu and a big cigar afterwards. He was clearly thinking big in those days too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F7497566?thread=4922946

Plus ça change. BBC Radio 3 controller Roger Wright's contribution to the Guardian Stockhausen tribute was to namedrop the London restaurant he took the composer to -

http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/story/0,,2226684,00.html
9:51 am
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