Moving production team of BBCs flagship current affairs show into a new commercial arm could bring fundamental changes
The BBCs venerable current affairs series Panorama of which, by way of a declaration of interest, I was once editor has been very much in the news. First, for its expose of Mazher Mahmood, the Fake Sheikh. This high-profile investigation and especially the evident commitment of the BBC hierarchy to getting it on air in the face of legal challenges and pressure from the police and attorney general will have done much to steady the nerves of the ever-jumpy Panorama team, recently widely reported to be worried about the commitment of BBC News director James Harding and their new editor Ceri Thomas to investigative reporting.
But Panorama has also been talked about for other reasons which, while less dramatic, point to developments that will almost certainly prove much more significant to the long-term future health of the programme and indeed the whole of the BBC than the Fake Sheikh expose. And that was the revelation that Panoramas in-house production team might be moved, along with most of the rest of BBC in-house production, into a new commercial subsidiary.
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