Lord Hall sparks fresh row with Victoria Derbyshire after he says her £3m show is watched by mainly ‘old men’ as it faces axe in corporation cuts
- The BBC director-general being grilled today by MPs at the DCMS Committee
- Lord Hall said the show only had 300,000 viewers and watched by ‘old men’
- Victoria Derbyshire hit back online and said a quarter of viewers were women
Lord Hall has sparked a fresh row with Victoria Derbyshire after he claimed her £3million-a-year BBC2 show is watched by ‘old men’ as it faces the axe in the corporation’s cuts.
The BBC director-general was being grilled today by MPs at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, when he said he hopes the ditched programme finds a home on the BBC News channel.
‘What I very much hope is that the programme … Victoria herself … and the journalism which they do will find a home on the news channel and elsewhere on the BBC,’ he said.
Lord Hall also said the show only had 300,000 viewers and was mainly watched by ‘old men’.
Victoria Derbyshire, who has clashed with BBC executives over the cancellation of her show, hit back at Lord Hall’s claim on social media today.
Victoria Derbyshire, pictured on her show last month, criticised Lord Hall’s comments he made at DCMS today
She tweeted: ‘This COMPLETELY ignores the rest of our figures – last month interviews/stories from our TV prog were viewed 20 MILLION TIMES online – stories & ints that wouldn’t have been commissioned without our on-air programme.
‘On our FB (Facebook) page three quarters of our viewers are women,’ she added.
The 51-year-old discovered that her show was being axed as part of a string of cuts when it was reported in a newspaper before the official announcement was made in January this year.
The presenter also previously clashed with the BBC News’ editorial director Kamal Ahmed.
He had shared a post about a probe by the flagship current affairs programme that had resulted in the Government announcing measures to ban putting children under the age of 16 in unregulated accommodation.
Ahmed wrote: ‘Investigations matter. Original journalism matters.’
The presenter tweeted Mr Ahmed to ‘reconsider the decision to close our programme then’ after he tweeted his praise for a Newsnight investigation.
During a briefing to BBC staff about the cost-reduction cuts weeks before she tweeted: ‘we were NEVER asked to grow the linear Tv audience. Ever.
‘We were asked to grow our digital audience – we did – our digi figures are huge (our successful digital figures appear to be an inconvenience to those making the decisions).’
Victoria Derbyshire (left) hit back at BBC News’ editorial director Kamal Ahmed (right) who hailed the corporation for its original journalism after her own programme was axed
Ahmed shared a post about a probe by the flagship current affairs programme that had resulted in the Government announcing measures to ban putting children under the age of 16 in unregulated accommodation (pictured, his tweet)
Derbyshire retweeted Ahmed’s tweet urging him to reconsider the BBC closing down her programme – which won a Bafta in 2017 and has been nominated for several awards
She added: ‘Our remit when we were set up: 1. Original journalism 2. Reaching underserved audiences 3. Growing the digital figures We achieved all 3.’
Derbyshire’s show began in 2015 and broadcasts live on BBC Two and the BBC News channel every weekday from 10am.
The programme won a Bafta in 2017 and has been nominated for several awards, including the RTS presenter prize.
Her response to Ahmed came after he apologised to BBC staff for accepting a £12,000 fee to speak at a banking conference last week.
Derbyshire live tweeted from a briefing to BBC staff about the cuts to the news division as part of a cost-reduction drive
In an email to staff that was shared with the Financial Times, Ahmed – who was previously the BBC’s economics editor – said he had accepted the invitation to speak at the Investing for the Future conference hosted by Aberdeen Standard Investments, and that it was not part of his work with the BBC.
He said he would no longer be accepting the fee for his appearance, which came days after the BBC announced that around 450 jobs would go as a result of the cuts.
Ahmed, who earns £205,000 a year at the BBC, wrote: ‘As a senior manager, I knew the event would be declared via the usual Declaration of Personal Interests that we publish.
‘There has been some comment in the media and on social about the fee and several people have raised it internally.
‘I realise now that I did not think things through sufficiently at the time of the booking and, although I did not break any of the BBC’s guidelines on external speaking, it was a mistake to agree a fee.’