Costing in the B. B. C.
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1958.tb01330.x |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
| Author | J. G. L. FRINCIS |
Costing
in
the
B.B.C.
By
J.
G.
L.
FRANCIS
The Chief Accountant
of
the
British
Broadcasting Corporath gave this
lecture to The Royal Institute
of
Public Administration in London
on
the 25th November, 1957.
LTHOUGH
the Corporation has been in existence for some
30
years and
A
has throughout that period controlled its programmes by a
hll
expenditure
analysis of the direct cost of artists’ fees, copyright material, etc., incurred
for each programme, the idea
of
proceeding further to a full costing of each
programme has only been developed during
the
past
sk
years. Like all
recent developments the system has been continually expanded, and at each
phase we have tended to find improvements which can later be applied to
some of the earlier systems put into practice. For example, costing has
most recently been applied to the London Sound programmes, that is, the
Home, Light, Third and Network Three, and in
so
doing, we have developed
refinements and improvements in the systems previously applied in the
Television Service and the Regions.
In
the main,
I
shall be describing
our latest ideas
on
the subject and may have to admit that these have
not
been consistently applied throughout as yet, although this
will
be the next
task that we shall undertake.
Most of you will realise that the B.B.C. has become a large and complex
institution. Our income from
all
sources
is
something like
~30,000,000
a
year. We employ some
15,000
staff; and our programme output is very
diveers and addressed to audiences
all
over the world.
DweIopment
of
the System
Our first problem when setting up the costing system was to decide which
would be the most worthwhile place to start.
In
fact, this question almost
answers itself. There are three main types
of
broadcasting, that
is,
Television,
the Home Services, and the External Services. The overall cost
of
broad-
casting
is
something like
A3,250
per hour for Television,
A575
per hour for
Sound Broadcasting and
A165
per hour for External broadcasts.
Since Television by its very nature is the most costly
medium,
it
was here that we introduced our first costing system which has
now been in existence for nearly five years. Television itself has three main
types of output. The programme produced in a studio, the outside broadcast,
as, for example, a race meeting, a Test match, or from an outside theatre,
and finally, films, either hired or purchased from existing sources
or
specially
shot by the B.B.C. Variations of our original system were devised and
applied to these three kinds of output, initially only for programmes produced
in,
or
based in London.
When this system had bedded down we then tackled the
five main regions, where the activities of the region are split between
production of Sound and Television programmes. Whereas
in
London
to a major extent, production effort is directed solely to Sound or to Television,
in the Regions some producers and other staff are used ambidextrously and
37
(a)
Television.
(6)
Regions.
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