The UK’s National Audit Office has published a report tracking the progress of the BBC’s ‘Across The UK’ - or ATUK - initiative. That’s a scheme via which the broadcaster aims to spend at least an extra £700 million outside London between March 2021 and March 2028, so that more of the UK sees an economic benefit from the BBC’s operations.
The report confirms that progress has been made in some areas but criticises the BBC’s strategy - originally published in October 2021 - as “underdeveloped, with no options appraisal for meeting objectives and no assessment of the local labour market”. It also criticises that the BBC has failed to move any spend on audio programming - music and radio - out of London.
ATUK is planned in three phases, the first of which ended in March 2023. During that period, the BBC set itself a target of moving £87.5 million of spending outside of London, but achieved only £67.5 million. Overall, by March 2023, the BBC had transferred 9.6% of its £700 million target, against a planned 12.5%.
While the BBC has moved 58% of its TV production spend out of London, the majority of money spent on audio programming of music and radio - 59% - remains in the capital with just 41% being spent outside London, a figure that has not changed since March 2020.
The BBC’s goal is to spend at least half of its music and radio budget outside London by 2028, with the NAO saying that the BBC has “yet to finalise its plans to get audio back on track”.
Responding to the NAO report, Rhodri Talfan Davies, the BBC’s Director Of Nations and Executive Sponsor of ATUK, notes that: “We met our overall programme phase one target for transferring expenditure outside London in June 2023”.
“We are building on our progress in audio, recognising specific plans have evolved in the context of other organisational priorities”, he adds. “We are focused and confident of delivering our target of 50% of audio production expenditure outside London by March 2028”.
