BBC must put more women on air 'as matter of urgency', says trust

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/11/bbc-more-women-on-air-urgency-trust

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The BBC must put more women on air "as a matter of urgency" and also improve the quality and distinctiveness of its peaktime drama and current affairs, according to new guidelines set out for the corporation in an attempt to put a turbulent year behind it.

The targets were outlined by the BBC Trust as part of an overhaul in the way the BBC is governed as it tries to move on from a string of controversies ranging from multimillion-pound payoffs for senior management to the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The BBC director general, Tony Hall, and the BBC's senior management will be given a series of objectives each year by the trust, which will be made public for the first time, the corporation said on Wednesday.

In its most recent set of objectives for the current financial year, the BBC Trust, chaired by Lord Patten, said Hall must work on "improving and increasing the representation of women on air" as well as flagging up concerns about peaktime drama on BBC1 and current affairs across both that channel and BBC2.

Mishal Husain recently joined BBC Radio 4's Today programme as only the second full-time woman presenter on its current rota after prolonged criticism that the programme was dominated by men.

Hall also announced in August that he wanted at least 50% of the BBC's local radio breakfast shows to have a female presenter by the end of next year. Earlier this year, just two of its 33 solo breakfast presenters were women.

But there remain challenges ahead. BBC Radio 2, the country's most popular radio station, does not have a single full-time female presenter in its daytime schedule between 6.30am and 7pm.

A spokeswoman for Sound Women, the industry pressure group devoted to giving women a louder voice on the airwaves, said: "Sound Women welcomes the move from the BBC to increase the representation of women on air.

"As improvements are made, it would be great to see the BBC announce plans to further support women's progression and unleash potential in management behind the scenes as well, and for other media companies to follow suit."

The BBC carried out a review of the way it is governed after a string of controversies over multimillion-pound payoffs to senior management, the £100m Digital Media Initiative fiasco and the Savile scandal.

The culture secretary, Maria Miller, called on the BBC to act after what she described as an "annus horribilis" for the corporation.

In a joint statement, Patten and Hall admitted the corporation's management and regulation had become "too confused" with "too much overlap" between the two bodies. They said "people do not always know who is responsible when things go wrong". The BBC is increasing its number of non-executive directors from four to six, with the former Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer its first appointment.

There was continued fallout from the Savile scandal on Wednesday as the BBC Trust said it was standing by the findings of the former Sky News head Nick Pollard's report into the affair.

This came after a tape recording was made public of Pollard telling a journalist that he had made a "mistake" in not including evidence from the then director of BBC News, Helen Boaden, that she had told the former director general Mark Thompson about the nature of Newsnight's shelved investigation into Savile's sex abuse in December 2011. Thompson maintains that he was unaware of the Savile allegations until he left the BBC in September 2012.

The trust said it was "satisfied the conclusions of the report are robust" but said it was "regrettable that Nick Pollard had decided to try to correct the record through an off-the-record conversation with a journalist rather than raising this point directly with the BBC, who commissioned the report".

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