Mercury’s Tim Sparke discusses BBC in latest Broadcast article

The below article appeared in Broadcast Magazine on 2nd August 2012:
Read here

Will George slay two tick dragon?
2 August, 2012
BBC is missing out by shunning acquisitions, says Tim Sparke.

If there was one set of unintended consequences that arose from the creation of the BBC ‘two-tick’ commissioning/acquisition system and its replacement under DQF, it is that commissioning editors still have the rather bizarre right to veto the acquisition of acquired programming that BBC controllers might want to put on air.

The noble idea behind ‘two tick’ was that commissioners and controllers each said yes before programming was commissioned, thereby reducing the chances that commissioners would green-light expensive programming that controllers in the end didn’t want, usually after the commission was contracted.

‘Two tick’ might work for commissions, but in my opinion it fails miserably when it comes to acquisitions because it short-changes licence-fee payers by denying them access to the best available, thereby undermining the BBC as transmitter of the best.

Commissioning editors by their nature aren’t interested in acquiring other people’s programmes, yet because of ingrained BBC process, they have to sign off on the acquired programmes they don’t want.

Worse still, for the commissioners, the cost of paying for the acquisitions they don’t want comes off their own commissioning budget, albeit at an average cost of just 15% of the cost of commissioning per programme hour.

So if you have ever wondered why so many great docs aren’t shown on the BBC, and will soon be found on Netflix, it is because commissioners, quite understandably, go to super-human lengths to nix the potential acquisition pipeline, lest acquisitions’ strength show up commissioning weakness.

Despite the logic of the argument, some commissioning editors revel in vetoing the most obvious slam-dunk wins for the BBC.

One commissioner, when offered fully funded £500,000 three-part series The God Question for just £35,000 an episode, rejected it without even watching it.

Maybe commissioners are omnipotent and can spot flaws without viewing, but lesser mortals can see what licence-fee payers are being denied here: www.mercurymedia.org/programmes/the-god-question/.

Acquired programmes on the BBC, especially in the doc space, do punch through the schedules.

A comparison of, say, the excellent Britain In A Day, which averaged a 5.5% share at an advised cost to BBC2 of £1m, with The Four Year Plan, the acclaimed QPR billionaire doc that won a 2012 Grierson Nomination (also on BBC2, albeit in a later slot), which averaged 11% share, is revealing.

However, if you factor in that The Four Year Plan cost the BBC £65,000, just 6.5% of the cost of Britain In A Day, not only do ratings suggest acquired docs are what the public wants, but by acquiring more, the BBC could commission smarter.

By giving channel controllers their own discretionary budget for acquisitions, new DG George Entwistle can send a powerful message to licence-fee payers that he is on their side, and not just on the side of the production industry.

Yes, the BBC needs to maintain a strong in-house and independent commissioning base, but when so much great programming is being produced outside of that process, perhaps more quality can be acquired first for licence-fee payers in the new leaner, fitter, smarter Entwistle era.

Tim Sparke is chief executive of Mercury Media International