Stuart Pinfold

"Due to Technical Problems..." - My blog

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The views expressed throughout this blog are my personal views, and not those of any organisation I work for, quote or reference in blog posts. No payment or payment in kind is accepted for blog posts.

Glastonbury Staff and Costs

02 July 2009 at 18:58

There's been much noise made about the BBC's staffing numbers at this year's Glastonbury Festival - a reported 407 staff at a cost of £1.5million.

Let's break that down, shall we? First of all, look at my pretty spreadsheet with some numbers on.

We can see that:

• There were 228 hours of broadcast coverage across BBC Radio, TV, and Red Button. This excludes any content for the website.
• There were 407 staff working on-site - made up of full-time staff, freelancers and contractors (for security, rigging and de-rigging, etc).

Taking these numbers, I calculate that for each hour of broadcast, there were less than 2 members of staff. Even BBC local radio breakfast shows have three staff (one Presenter, one Producer and one Broadcast Assistant).

I can also calculate that - with the reported cost at £1.5million - each hour of broadcast material cost just £6,578.95. That sounds high at first glance - but the cost of one days' hire of a television studio at Television Centre, excluding any staff, costs around £45,000.

You should also bear in mind that this figure per hour is just for those hours broadcast - excluding the off-air costs of security, travel, accommodation, satellite links, rigging and de-rigging studios, installing and removing transmission facilities, off-air technical staff and all the rest of the stuff that you don't directly see or hear on-air.

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Caught empty-handed

23 June 2009 at 13:58

This cheered me up after a bit of a rubbish day at work last week.

I got on the train home, joining at City Thameslink around 7:30pm. I sat, as always, in the very last carriage. In this particular car, the small first-class section was behind me, and the toilet in front of me.

As the train pulled into St Pancras, passengers alighted the train and the ones waiting boarded, along with a group of five ticket inspectors. Seeing the inspectors, someone sitting to my left casually picked up his bag and got off the train, way after everyone else had left. A sharp-eyed inspector saw him and followed him, presumably to see if he was going to wait on the platform for the next train instead.

The doors closed, and we made our way out of the tunnel and into the evening sunlight. Suddenly, the toilet door opened and a middle-aged, suited City worker exited and started walking down the carriage towards me. However, he saw the inspectors, paused... and then went up to them. I only heard snippets of the conversation, but it was obvious the man was casually trying to buy a ticket from them. The words 'penalty fare' were spoken and, after a bit of huffing and puffing from the passenger about the high cost of his new ticket, he dipped into his pocket and pulled out a bank card. He was just in the process of signing for the tickets when we started pulling into our next stop, West Hampstead Thameslink.

Three of the inspectors then bundled him out of the door and, after some confusion from the passenger, they explained that what he'd paid them was just the fare to West Hampstead, and that he would have to get off here and buy himself another ticket for the remainder of his journey - and that they were going to go with him to make sure he didn't just get on the next train.

Just as the 'beep beep beep' started to warn of imminent closing doors, from the platform I heard him say "but what about my bag?!". The inspectors quickly looked round, realised the doors were already closed and asked him where his bag was.

"It's in the first cla..." the man started saying.

"Ohhhh, so you've been sitting in first class as well, have you?" asked the inspector, looking round, grinning and raising his eyebrows at his colleagues just as the train started pulling away...

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BBC Shuttle Buses

08 June 2009 at 16:36

I appreciate that I should count myself lucky to work for an organisation which does arrange alternative shuttle-bus transport during a (still proposed) Tube strike tomorrow. But, there are differences between the BBC and most other businesses in London: namely that it broadcasts 24/7, and therefore has many staff on shift patterns which go beyond the normal 9-5 work day. They also require staff to be physically present: a camera operator can't film a news bulletin from home, just as a radio producer can't look after a live programme without being in the studio.

So, with this in mind, does the BBC suggest 9-5 office workers who will struggle to attend should work from home for the day using MyConnect, then concentrating their shuttle bus efforts on getting production staff in?

You know the answer to that one, don't you?

So, the earliest buses in the morning arrive at 07:30 (Ealing Broadway to Television Centre and Liverpool Street to Broadcasting House), and the last buses leaving a BBC building in the evening are at 20:00 (Broadcasting House to Waterloo or Victoria).

There's also a gaping hole in the middle of the day - the latest morning bus arriving at a BBC building is at 11:45 (arriving at Television Centre from Waterloo) and the earliest evening bus leaves at 16:00 (the White City building to Olympia station)

Early start? On a night shift? Starting after lunch? Finishing after 8pm? You're screwed.

And yes, this affects lots of staff. On Wednesday (the middle of the strike), in the small department I work in, 22 staff are on shift work. Of those, only two will be able to get a shuttle bus at both ends of their shift. Five staff finish their shifts at the edge of the timetable; they might not make the last bus in time. Twelve staff will only be able to make use of the shuttle bus service at one end of their shift; they start too early for the first bus or finish too late for the last one. Most importantly, three of my colleagues both start and finish their shift outside of the bus timetable. Altogether, 68% of department staff won't be able to make use of the shuttle bus at one, or both, ends of their shift.

In my old department on that day, the percentage is higher: of ten shift staff, nine (90%) are guaranteed to miss the bus on at least one end of their shift, and the other person is on the edge of the end of the timetable.

Of course, "the show must go on" - somehow.

Photo: Tube tracks north of Wimbledon station, by SNappa2006, on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license - thanks!

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