"The report shows the BBC has made real progress in
delivering value for licence fee payers: an excellent achievement
of which the BBC can feel proud. Popular, long-running dramas like
Eastenders sit at the heart of the BBC schedule, generating loyalty
from audiences as well as an environment for new writing, acting
and production talent to flourish. They cost viewers less than they
did ten years ago, while audience approval is on the
up.
"We accept the majority of the NAO's recommendations,
with the exception of the suggestion that the BBC should set
targets at programme level. We believe there is a risk that this
could harm the BBC's ability to produce distinctive programming by
acting as a disincentive to take creative risks and creating
unnecessary bureaucracy."
Anthony Fry, BBC Trustee with lead responsibility for value for
money, 22 March 2011
"The BBC is doing a good job of applying basic financial
controls and achieving steady cost reduction across its portfolio
of continuing dramas. However, it should take a more holistic
approach and compare the cost of these programmes with audience
levels and opinions, both targeted and achieved, as these are
critical measures of broadcast performance, and a key guide to
whether the continuing dramas are delivering value for
money."
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 22 March
2011
The BBC Trust today published an independent report commissioned
from the National Audit Office on the BBC's management of the costs
of producing continuing drama.
In 2009-10 the BBC spent £102.5 million (down from £108.6
million in 2002-03) making six continuing dramas or soap
operas.
The NAO has concluded that, although the absence of formal
audience-related performance objectives for individual dramas meant
the NAO was unable to say whether the BBC is delivering value for
money, the BBC has taken important steps towards achieving
this.
The six continuing dramas reviewed were Casualty, Doctors,
Eastenders and Holby City (broadcast throughout the UK), River City
(broadcast in Scotland) and Pobol y Cwm (produced by the BBC for
broadcast in Wales on S4C).
The review found that production costs on these long running
shows are tightly controlled, and that the average cost of
producing an hour of continuing drama has fallen by 20 per cent in
real terms over the last eight years, with the programmes being
delivered on time and largely within budget.
The report recommends the BBC strengthen its approach to
achieving value for money in continuing drama by being more
systematic in comparing and challenging production costs and
processes.
Key points from the report and the Trust's response to them
include:
- The average cost per viewer hour across the six programmes has
increased in real terms by 8.9 per cent over the last eight years
as a result of falling viewer numbers. However, this decline in
viewer numbers has masked reductions in total production costs,
which have declined by 20 per cent over the same period. Audience
approval has increased by an average of 6.5 per cent over the last
four years.
The Trust is pleased with the NAO's finding that the BBC has
reduced the cost of producing these dramas by 20 per cent in real
terms while at the same time increasing audience
approval.
- All six programmes were found to have strong mechanisms for
establishing a detailed budget and then monitoring and reporting
expenditure against it, although the teams responsible for
producing the continuing dramas do not use a consistent approach.
Of the completed series examined by the NAO, 33 of the 46 were on,
or under budget.
The Trust welcomes the NAO's statement that the BBC has a
strong culture of monitoring performance and strong mechanisms in
place to establish and manage performance budgets.
- The BBC regularly reviews the performance of programmes by
looking at the number of viewers and the level of audience approval
but does not set formal objectives for what programmes are expected
to deliver. By setting such objectives, the BBC would demonstrably
link the resources committed and what it is trying to
achieve.
While some objectives - for example budgets - can be set at
individual programme level, the Trust believes that it is not
always appropriate for the BBC to set audience-focused objectives
for individual programmes. The BBC currently sets these objectives
at a channel or genre level; to set objectives at an individual
programme level runs the risk of creating not only perverse or
unintended consequences but also of unnecessary bureaucracy. The
Trust remains committed to ensuring value for money from programmes
and considers that a varied range of metrics by channel and genre
is an essential tool to achieve this. However, the Trust will
undertake some further work to understand how other creative
organisations address the issues raised by this
recommendation.