Book Description

The BBC, in 2007-08, spent £462 million on its 16 radio stations. The BBC has set these 16 stations a combined target of efficiency savings of £69 million over the five year period to March 2013, representing an annual saving of 3 per cent. The BBC proposed unacceptable constraints on the Comptroller and Auditor General's access to information and his discretion to report to his findings to Parliament. The situation arose because the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have statutory unrestricted rights of access to the BBC, which he does with all other publicly funded bodies. The BBC has wide ranges of costs for similar programmes within and between its radio stations. The average cost for an hour of comparable music programmes on Radio 2 is more than 50 per cent higher than on Radio 1. For most breakfast and 'drivetime' slots, the BBC's costs are significantly higher than commercial stations, largely because of payments to presenters. The BBC has not used cost comparisons across its own programmes, or against commercial radio, to identify scope for efficiencies. The BBC uses its principal value for money indicator-cost per listener hour-to justify the cost of presenters on the basis of audience size, but the indicator does not provide assurance that programme costs are the minimum necessary to reach the required quality and intended audience. For most radio programmes, presenters' salaries represent the majority of programming costs, but the BBC is paying more than the market price for its top radio presenters. The BBC has prevented full public scrutiny of the value for money of expenditure on presenters by agreeing confidentiality clauses with some presenters.