Will Beeb leave the region out in the cold?

Feb 12 2010 by David Whetstone, The Journal

BBC director general Mark Thompson yesterday addressed fears that the corporation’s major relocation to the North West would leave the North East in the cold.

Five BBC departments – Radio 5Live, Children’s, Sport, Learning, and Future Media & Technology – are relocating to MediaCity UK, a new development in Salford.

Mr Thompson estimated hundreds of jobs could be created, partly as a result of London-based BBC employees deciding not to relocate.

Tom Harvey, chief executive of screen agency Northern Film & Media, expressed fears last year that a dwindling number of North East broadcast professionals could be lured across the Pennines.

Mr Harvey also criticised the BBC for not giving North East licence fee payers value for money as programmes made in or showing the region disappeared from the network.

Speaking in Middlesbrough yesterday, Mr Thompson acknowledged that the North East was quite a long way from Salford and the new base of BBC North.

But he said: “It is really important to understand that Salford is only one part of the story and that we are trying to engage across the whole of the North of England.” He pointed out that the BBC had commissioned children’s series Tracey Beaker Returns to be filmed in the North East and that the drama series George Gently, which is set in the North East, would now actually be filmed here.

“Seeing George Gently actually shot in the North East is a step in the right direction but I’d like to see more network pieces not just shot in the North East but redolent of it and reflecting the lives of the people who live there.

“I’ve been up to the North East I think four or five times as director general and this is my second time in Middlesbrough,” he said.

“Peter Salmon (head of BBC North, based in Salford) has been here repeatedly because we know that there are opportunities in the North East.”