How they’ve turned wasting £100m of YOUR money into a joke . . .with Downton star Hugh
IT’S a new series that follows the fortunes of a group of senior executives as the BBC lurches from one crisis to another.
But this is no fly-on-the-wall documentary showing how the Corporation is trying to tackle its problems: this is a comedy that makes light of a series of scandals that have cost licence fee payers millions of pounds.
In one episode, real BBC executive Alan Yentob makes a cameo appearance, where he is seen arm-wrestling with novelist Salman Rushdie.
W1A, which will be broadcast later this month, stars Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville, and several of the characters and storylines bear a striking similarity to real people and events.
Bonneville plays Ian Fletcher, who has been hired to chart a new course for the BBC in light of what are described as ‘recent learning opportunities’.
These ‘opportunities’ seem to be an obvious reference to the crises which continue to engulf the publicly funded broadcaster . . .
THE COMEDY: Staff are forced to rely on a new IT system called Syncopatico. It is meant to revolutionise life, – but actually it doesn’t work.
THE REALITY: In April 2013 the BBC scrapped its state-of-the-art ‘Digital Media Initiative’ at a cost to licence fee payers of £100million.
Spending watchdog the National Audit Office subsequently accused the Corporation’s senior executives of losing ‘their grip’ on the system.
THE COMEDY: The Corporation is thrown into crisis when Sally Wingate, a veteran presenter on the regional programme Spotlight South West, claims her career has been held back because of the broadcaster’s institutional anti-West Country bias.
THE REALITY: In 2011 Miriam O’Reilly, 53, took the BBC to an employment tribunal claiming she had been dropped as a presenter of Countryfile because of her age. The presenter won her case and returned to work at the BBC.
THE COMEDY: Bonneville’s character Ian Fletcher, newly appointed as Head of Values, has been brought in
to turn around the beleaguered Corporation in the light of a wave of scandals or ‘specific learning opportunities’.
During a meeting of the BBC’s ‘Way Ahead taskforce’, he describes the broadcaster as ‘one of the greatest ideas in the world’ and insists that it must face the challenges of the future with ‘confidence’.
THE REALITY: Tony Hall, who took up his post as Director General in April 2013, has said the Corporation most become more ‘aggressive’ and ‘less British’ when it comes to defending its corner.
THE COMEDY: Employees at the BBC’s high-tech New Broadcasting House HQ complain about their open-plan office, which contains ‘interactive spaces’ rather than actual offices.
THE REALITY: Last year the BBC spent £500,000 on a revamp of its brand new £1billion New Broadcasting House because staff there claimed it was not vibrant or creative enough. The improvements included the installation of ‘a new collaboration project zone.’
THE COMEDY: The BBC’s next big must-see production is Britain’s Tastiest Village, which is billed as ‘Countryfile meets the Bake Off with a bit of the One Show thrown in just in case’.
THE REALITY: Critics say that the Corporation’s schedules are dominated by consumer and lifestyle programmes. This is despite the fact that the BBC Trust has called for more original and distinctive TV shows.