BBC strategic review a missed opportunity for UK consultancy

Unless you’ve been living in a tent in the woods for the past few weeks, you’ve probably been following the furore surrounding the BBC’s “Strategic Review”. And can I just say…work of genius. Not necessarily the review itself, but the way in which it’s been managed. A quick analysis of the review through the medium of newspaper column inches will show that the main bone of contention is the closure of a small, DAB-only station called BBC 6 Music, and to a less extent its sister, also DAB-only station Asian Network.

Now, I must confess that I had never heard of BBC 6 Music, except in that as I sometimes listen to BBC Radio 7 I was vaguely aware that there should have been a 6 in the mix somewhere. But I probably assumed that it was some urban racket-fest aimed at dispossessed teenagers. Imagine my chagrin to learn that this is a station that was aimed at precisely my demographic, what you might call the “lost children of John Peel,” sad middle-aged men who like to believe they can still keep in touch with music somehow. It’s been going for eight years and I only got to listen to it for about a week before I left its 30-50 demographic forever.

Once I’d stopped being angry and signing up to Facebook groups, I began to smell a rat. Even the presenters on the programme—to which I a now a regular listener—refer to the “BBC’s ironic marketing campaign”. I’m not sure if this station was ever seriously under threat, any more than the puppy in the equally ironic “buy our product or we’ll shoot this puppy” ads (I should add that if BBC 6 Music has a fault, it’s that like so much of the modern media industry it’s so steeped in the need to be ironic that you can’t even tell whether they are really that sad they are being closed down).

But look what’s happened: here’s a “strategic review,” which is reported as making “cuts” of £600m (I’ll explain the scare quotes later) from a budget which recently topped £3bn. And everyone is talking about a tiny little station catering to 700,000 listeners, which costs about £9m. It’s masterful misdirection, particularly as the £600m “cuts” aren’t cuts at all, but money which is being redirected into “quality programming”. Which is a bit like a restaurant announcing that in the future it’s going to concentrate on nice-tasting food, when you think about it.

But what would you expect from a “strategy review” whose remit is expressed thusly: “In July 2009 we asked the BBC Executive to undertake a full-scale review of the BBC's strategy, to decide what the future direction of the corporation ought to be.”

It’s not exactly John Birt, his chums from McKinsey and a mandate for blue sky thinking, is it? This isn’t really “undertaking a…review of the strategy” as “taking a view”, particularly as there doesn’t seem to have been much of a strategy to begin with. The BBC’s recent history has been more like a digital version of the urban sprawl of our major cities. Now with “setting boundaries” as a major strategic priority, we have the equivalent of a green belt being set up—with all that that implies.

I’m sure any strategy consultants reading this are sobbing uncontrollably at the moment. The chance to work on a strategy for spending THREE BILLION POUNDS, none of which actually has to be earned, is mouthwatering, let alone dealing with the complex political, commercial and stakeholder environments the BBC finds itself in. You almost want to shout at the BBC, there are people who do this for a living you know? And they’re cheaper than Jonathan Ross (well, just).

But would they even have taken it on? Look at McKinsey’s recent experience with the NHS, where they achieved t