Fellows' diaries 2007: 23rd October

Ha Thu Hang, Vietnam Television, Vietnam

Such a day! Everyone returned to the hotel exhausted, but excited! There was so much information, and so many impressions! In one day, the fellows learned about British broadcasting policy and the biggest British broadcaster, the BBC. We learned more about the BBC’s system than we could have done in a month. 

The day starts at 9:00 in the BBC’s Bush House with a discussion with Gerry Power from the BBC World Service Trust. This is an NGO which is funded mostly by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and aimed at producing creative programmes in various media formats on key issues such as health, education, governance and strengthening the media infrastructure in developing countries. It makes good sense for some of the fellows to meet with this organisation – especially those from Africa, who want to be involved in the BBC World Service Trust’s projects, one of which is journalism training.     

The discussion lasted for just 30 minutes and we had to jump quickly to another appointment with Jane Futrell, Head of International Marketing at the BBC World Service. The BBC World Service provides news and information in 33 languages worldwide.

Although they are a public service funded by the UK FCO with a budget in 2007/2008 of around 246 million pounds, they still face big challenges when fundamental changes take place – for example, massive growth in access to new media, huge rise in competition and sources, and fundamental changes in audience behaviour, expectations and demands. So research is needed for them to reconsider their business strategy.

On that, Kelly Parkinson, Insight Manager provided the fellows with some insight into how the BBC researches its audience. With the budget of 1.4 million pounds, the researchers do enormous work, using 3 different levels of research to work out: “what the audience tells you”, “what they really do”, and “why”. This is the information behind the figures. The meeting gives the fellows some useful ideas as to how they can research their consumers at home, especially in a cheap way. The BBC is using a “piggy-back” method, to combine their data with other surveys.

After a quick lunch in a quiet restaurant, the fellows hurry to another meeting with Jon Zeff. His Department of Culture, Media & Sport deals with a variety of activities, including sports, culture, tourism and gambling. He is also responsible for the framework for broadcasting in the UK.

Each fellow finds this meeting useful in their own way: “It gives me a comparison between the broadcasting system in the UK and Zambia”, said Chanda from Zambia, while Moshongwa from South Africa said, “I was very interested in digitisation in the UK. South Africa is going through this.” Muamar from Palestine also said, “It’s quite interesting to know about British Broadcasting Policy”.

But the most fascinating thing is still ahead. Chrichton Limbert (right), who is the Head of News Production Organisation at the BBC, gave the fellows a tour of the BBC newsroom in BBC Television Center. You can easily get lost in this building, in which 1000 people do their continuous creative work for BBC World, BBC Sports (the channels broadcasted in the UK), BBC radio 1 to 7 as well as BBC online.

The first question everyone was eager to ask was: how can they run such a complicated and huge system? One and a half hours of touring the BBC newsroom can’t answer all the questions but at least the fellows really feel that the BBC is a great example of how a company can reduce their staff to a minimum, by making each position more effective and strong. Of course, new technology helps much. Take some examples: they need only 3 men in a studio to air “Hard Talk” – a presenter, a cameraman and a director. And a reporter needs only a laptop, a digital camera and a satellite device (which looks like a suitcase weighing about 3 kg – left) to video stories and send them to the newsroom from every corner of the world.