The BBC is a Cesspit

Now tell me something I don't already know.

Some years ago, two friends of mine told me some interesting stories about the BBC. They had both worked there as contractors in the IT sector.

One of them worked for BBC Worldwide, a branch of the BBC which was responsible for selling BBC content to other countries.

He told me that just before the end of the financial year, emails were sent around the office saying, “If you have any money left in your budget, make sure you spend it before the financial year end”. The reason was that if you don’t spend it all, you’ll be given a smaller budget next year, because you didn’t need that much. So, for the last month or two of the financial year, there was an orgy of pointless spending simply to get rid of money.

Then, at the end of the year when they announced their results, they had a huge celebration. They had made a £200 million profit on a £1.4 billion turnover. Remember, this organisation doesn’t make anything, it just resells BBC output. My friend asked at the time “What did you do with the other £1.2 billion?” He never got an answer.

Another friend worked in the BBC White City office in London. He told me that the workers didn’t actually have to get themselves to the office. They just had to get themselves as far as White City tube station, and the BBC operated minibuses which would shuttle the staff between the station and the office. There was a place outside the office where the minibuses turned around, and the BBC decided to build a mini-roundabout there for the minibuses to turn around on.

Some builders were working on it one day and my friend decided to go and speak to one of them. The builder said, “Do you see this stone here?” He had a big piece of stone shaped like a quarter of a circle. He said “This is white marble from Italy. Each stone costs a quarter of a million pounds”.

Four of these put together formed a circle, the basis of the mini-roundabout. So, according to this friend of mine, the BBC spent £1 million of taxpayers’ money on a mini-roundabout made of Italian marble for their staff minibuses to turn around on.

I’m just reporting what was told to me. I have no reason to think they were lying. I wonder what Elon Musk would have to say about all of this. A British DOGE can’t happen soon enough.