Prodi lives to fight another day

Two sighs of relief for the Prodi government. First, the Senate approves the Italian mission to Afghanistan after the government made it a vote of confidence. Second, the Camera approves by the required two-thirds majority amnesties for certain crimes - and the minister who opposed it, Antonio Di Pietro, doesn't resign.

Members of the centre-right had left the Senate to deprive the centre-left of the quorum; immediately after the vote, they complained that the quorum had been calculated incorrectly. As Altero Matteoli explains,

"There are 322 senators; 4 were on mission, so the total goes down to 318, half of which is 159. So there wasn't the legal number, that's 160 [50% + 1]".

Marini explained however that "to the 159 present one always adds the non-voting President - there's no doubt about it".

Although the centre-left won this vote, 16 senators from six parties (Verdi, PRC, PDCI, SVP, IdV, DS) defected on other provisions of the bill. It remains to be seen whether these sixteen will form a future 'awkward squad'.

Technorati Tags: Prodi, government, majority, infight, Senate, confidence

More Thompson replies to politician's queries

More Axegrinder 21.07.06 | Press Gazette: "BBC director general Mark Thompson put his foot in it with a Labour MP during his appearance in Westminster last week. Thompson was being assailed by MP Mike Hall about a BBC programme called The Secret Policeman, which, in Hall's words, used 'criminal elements' in its production.

'If you'd care to write to me about it,' Thompson told the whingeing MP.

Hall (steam shooting from his ears): 'I did write to you! I had an extensive correspondence with you!'"

SNP demands meeting over BBC job cuts — SNP - Scottish National Party

SNP demands meeting over BBC job cuts.

SNP Holyrood leader Nicola Sturgeon is asking for a meeting with director-general Mark Thompson after reports of a further round of cuts which could jeopardise flagship BBC television and radio output... Further budget cuts again underlines the need for broadcasting to be devolved to Scotland

In what sense? A Scottish Broadcasting Corporation? Supervision of the BBC by the Scottish Parliament? Passage of Scottish media legislation?

Technorati Tags: SNP, Nicola+Sturgeon, Thompson, political+interference, BBC

Satisfaction with Prodi government

Satisfaction with the Prodi government increases, according to this ISPO poll. The government now has net positive ratings: 43% evaluated the government positively (up 4 from late June), 31% negatively (down 10).

Technorati Tags: Prodi, polling, ISPO, satisfaction, government

Fox attacks BBC's Iraq coverage

Independent Online Edition > Media: "Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary, has accused the BBC of pumping out 'unrelentingly negative' reports about Iraq without giving adequate coverage to more positive developments."

Technorati Tags: tories, conservative+party, liam+fox, BBC, political+interference

Minister Gentiloni shares more thoughts on Rai's reorganisation

Paolo Gentiloni's initial thoughts on Rai's reorganisation - which I covered earlier this month, seem to have hardened. In an interview with the Corriere della Sera (reprinted here), Gentiloni suggests that Rai ought to have a rather complex structure. Rai is to remain a single company, but is to have three separate accounting units/subsidiaries:

• One unit running two 'public service channels', with less advertising, funded by an increased licence fee


• One unit running a 'commercial' channel, with more freedom to sell advertising space, not funded by the licence fee


• One unit running the television transmitter network

The reorganisation is justified since necessary: "The EU has imposed separate accounting (of state aid to profit-making companies) on us. After much hunting, I found this requirement in the Commission's Communication on the Application of State Aid Rules to Public Service Broadcasting, para. 49. Of course, what Gentiloni fails to note is that this requirement has been incumbent on Rai since 2001.

Gentiloni's scheme seems comically awkward. How will Rai - no stranger to internecine battles - be able to avoid either (a) cross-subsidisation or (b) poaching of resources between wings of the company?

The potential for conflict even now is noted in Il Giornale, which comments on the appointments rumour-mill in Rai. Paolo Ruffini, currently director of RaiTre, moves to RaiUno; Giovanni Minoli takes his place at RaiTre. Yet Giornali views Minoli as bound to cause problems at RaiTre because of his "centralising nature", and Ruffini as bound to face problems at RaiUno, "spending 90% of his time managing the space demanded by Bruno Vespa, the autarchic pretensions of Bibi Ballandi,", and so on.

I've got a lot of time for Paolo Ruffini - when I interviewed him last year he responded thoughtfully and carefully to my questions in print - and also denied a lot of the things said about him by Sabina Guzzanti.

Technorati Tags: paolo+ruffini, paolo+gentiloni, organisation, public+service+broadcasting,

BBC reorganisation

The BBC today announced a very thorough plan for re-organisation (coverage from Netribution and Press Gazette). The plan creates three large macro-units, BBC Vision, BBC Journalism, and BBC Audio, which will form the core of the BBC's organisation. Other units which ply their trade across the BBC - Future Media & Technology (FM&T), Policy, Strategy and Legal, HR, Finance, and so on, - are either 'mainstreamed' into the three macro-units, or merged with other units. For example, Policy, Strategy & Legal becomes BBC Operations, with the same person, Caroline Thomson, taking over as COO in addition to her previous policy and strategy brief.

The thinking behind the plan seems appropriate: in conditions of convergence, rigid demarcations between content platforms (television, radio) make little sense, and may inhibit the development of platform-independent content. Demarcations based on media type, however, remain salient; they are suitable candidates for reshaping any organisation which manufactures content.

There are, I suggest, two principal challenges. The first challenge is for those units mentioned above - FM&T and Operations. They must ensure that they don't become absorbed by the macro-units without making their input felt. The second challenge will be for the entire organization: the pace of change at the BBC now seems very great indeed. BBC Worldwide and BBC People are already morphing; and the new BBC Trust is an entirely new institution. Making sure these newly carved pieces fit together smoothly in the jigsaw will be an important managerial challenge. Fortunately, organizational change has not been accompanied by personnel change. The same individuals - Mark Byford, Jana Bennett, Jenny Abramsky - will be able to manage the change.

Technorati Tags: BBC, Jana+Bennett, Mark+Thompson, organization, convergence