Divide and conquer
Here's one we made much, much earlier - and now it's time to move
Sometimes it's difficult to know what to think about the BBC's proposed move for key departments from London to Salford, if it goes ahead that is. (We should know almost for certain sometime next week.) It may look good on paper but that in itself may conveniently hide the real and barely-mentioned problems relating to the proposal.
A plan to move key BBC departments to Salford has strong support from MP's and constituents in the North-west - Labour's traditional heartland - therefore effectively bribing them and wiping out a chunk of potential opposition as to what could happen to the rest of the BBC in London; what happens here will dictate the eventual fate of the BBC as a whole.
What's good for Salford could ultimately be intended as a plan of genius proportions to split up and privatise the BBC with relatively little opposition; the vast majority won't know what's hit them until it's much too late. The future of the BBC is far more important than a headline-grabbing gesture that could be achieved just as effectively using other methods.
And it's true that the BBC's iconic Television Centre building happens to be listed, but that won't stop a developer converting it into a shopping centre if it's sold off in order to generate additional revenue. If that happens then Mark Thompson might manage to do something that no predecessor has managed, namely the complete dismantling of the BBC piece by piece.
Plus having a two centre plan could have an additional side effect of making the BBC more regionally-biased in some respects as opposed to less; this is already evident in the moving of the production of The One Show from Birmingham to that regional centre of activity known as............London.
Don't say you haven't been warned.
