The BBC’s massive restructuring has created its first new communications
job.
BBC Broadcast, the corporation’s new scheduling and commissioning arm,
is looking to fill the new top-level post of director of marketing and
communications. He or she will sit on a management board of nine
directors, reporting to BBC Broadcast chief executive Will Wyatt.
The directorate, which formally comes into being on 1 November, is the
first major step in the BBC’s shake-up, announced by director general
John Birt last June. It will unite the scheduling and commissioning and
transmission of all the BBC’s worldwide TV and radio channelsin a bid to
boost production.
BBC TV Publicity managing editor Andrew Skinner stressed it is in the
‘very early stages’ of formulating the job description and that
recruiting has not yet started.
‘Over the next few weeks there will be more thoughts over the role,
remit and how to recruit,’ he said. ‘The BBC knows it has to face the
future competition, with Channel 5 just around the corner, and has to be
that much more focused on all its marketing disciplines.
There are two potential internal candidates for the job: head of radio
and marketing publicity Sue Farr; and controller of publicity and PR
Keith Samuel. In the new set-up their current jobs will come under the
director of marketing and communications.
Farr, a former chairman of the Marketing Society and launch marketing
director of UK Gold, joined the BBC in 1993. Reporting to director of
radio Matthew Bannister, her job is to strengthen the BBC Radio brand.
Samuel, a former local newspaper reporter, has worked in publicity roles
for the BBC for 24 years. He has headed the BBC TV Publicity division
since the early 1980s.
By April 1997, the BBC will consist of six divisions: BBC Broadcast,
Production, News, Worldwide, Resources and the Corporate Centre.
