BBC needs all the allies it can get
DEAR Editor, I was interested in your front page headline story in last week’s Post, “Mayor condemns BBC staff who think they are too good for Brum”.
At one level it’s not particularly surprising that staff are resistant to moving to another part of the country.
It is also true that national news organisations are usually based in London, which is yet another reason why Londonbased staff working in the industry are reluctant to move elsewhere.
Indeed the reluctance of London-based
BBC staff to move away from the capital is nothing new. When the BBC decided to make a significant increase in investment in Manchester, along with the opportunity for BBC employees to move there, very similar comments were made by London BBC staff at the time.
Despite the entrenched attitudes held by many of their employees, the Corporation ensured that their decision to move to Manchester would go ahead regardless.
Therefore, it is to be hoped that the BBC adopt the same determined attitude in respect of this latest move to relocate Newsbeat from London to Birmingham.
If not, I agree entirely with Andy Street’s comments that we have more than enough talent in the Midlands to take any jobs on offer and make a success of it.
This also applies to what was termed in the article as the promised “major expansion of production in Birmingham”.
This includes producing more prime time brands, building a centre of excellence, the return to Birmingham of the Asian Network, a news data journalism team, learning hubs, an Apprentice Academy, BBC3 documentary opportunities to tell Midland stories, regional BBC HD Services and a new peak time local radio service for Wolverhampton.
All this, plus a nation wide plan to ensure that spending and programme-making is focused less on London and more on the regions and nations of the UK.
We do hope this doesn’t all go in the direction of the usual suspects and that a significant proportion of spend and production is directed toward the Midland region.
Nevertheless, this all sounds very positive and impressive, and is definitely a start, at the very least, for the BBC to right the wrongs of the recent past and begin to reinvest in our region.
Any more unacceptable treatment of the Midland region will no longer be tolerated and people within our region, who have so far largely supported the BBC, will begin to voice their opposition.
What is abundantly clear is that in the current climate the Corporation needs all the allies it can get. If it loses it’s largest region/ nation, which at the moment it is in danger of doing, it may well be a development that it can ill afford.
David Emson, Belbroughton, Worcestershire