Call Of The Wild

‘NO-ONE knew better than John Birt the wonders of performance-related pay, targets, internal markets, management speak and all the other modern inventions that have made Britain what it is today.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys

And, although JB has gone from the BBC to advise TB on how the whole British life can be represented in a single quadratic equation, his legacy lives on.

This morning, the Independent reports that Rosamund Kidman Cox, the well-respected editor of the BBC Wildlife magazine, is resigning after 21 years rather than carry on working for a low-cost version of the magazine published by an outside company.

Of course, all you management gurus out there will know that this is called outsourcing and is a great way of getting other people to do all your work for you.

So much so that the most successful bosses have managed to devolve every part of their operation, enabling them to fire all their staff, get rid of their offices and eventually close down the company altogether.

Anyway, back to the BBC and Ms Kidman Cox – and the Indy tells us that green campaigners, writers, film makers and other unenlightened ne-er-do-wells are queuing up to lambaste the BBC over its decision.

Tony Juniper, director of Friends Of The Earth, said: ‘Ros has created probably the world’s leading wildlife magazine and for that achievement to be put at risk through some short-sighted BBC business decision geared towards cost-cutting is tragic.’

But is it? Origin Publishing, the new publishers of BBC Wildlife (soon to be renamed something like Predator), has great experience in the magazine industry.

Witness the global reputations of publications like Cross Stitch Crazy and Your Hair.’

Posted: 24th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink