A measure of failure

Ballot papers go out today at the BBC. A strike vote over jobs cuts. We've been here before; a Director General staking his personal reputation on the need for a large scale job reduction programme in order to make the BBC fit for its future. Short term pain for long term gain. However, this was not the dim and distant past, it was merely three years ago. Now the same Director General says we need to change the priorities of the BBC These will be the ones that were set three years ago by the same management. Change is inevitable, in an organisation with scale, such as the BBC, change can be managed without unnecessary bloodshed. The chairman of the BBC Trust says its not about job cuts and this will be hard to understand if it's your job that is being cut. However in some respects he may be right; The intent is to attack jobs and conditions at the BBC. Replacing existing staff with cheaper newcomers. The future direction of the BBC is at stake, however, the argument is not about new technologies and the Internet; if the architects of today's dispute have their way, the BBC will become identical to its commercial competitors; where it to do this, it would spell the end of the BBC.