Empire building Chris Kane, head of BBC Workspace, tells David Thame about Dr Who’s new home at Cardiff’s
For a man who has just been smacked, Chris Kane is remarkably chipper.
Kane, head of BBC Workspace, ought to be smarting after a National Audit Office report criticised the BBC for failing to get value for money during a £2bn spending spree on new studios and offices.
In a damning report, the official spending watchdog criticised three projects – the redevelopment of London’s Broadcasting House, Pacific Quay in Glasgow and MediaCityUK in Salford – for poor leadership, questionable planning and dubious value for money.
But Kane – who has just embarked on the BBC’s much-hailed move to Cardiff’s Roath Basin (see panel) and is now planning similar moves in Belfast and Bristol – is unbowed.
In fact, as he launches into the Cardiff project, Kane is happy to distribute some severe smacks of his own. The British property industry is “feudalistic”, he says, and it is about time it appreciated who its customers are.
Kane, who joined the BBC from Walt Disney, where he was head of real estate, is leading the effort to upgrade the BBC’s eight major UK production centres. Cardiff – home to Dr Who, Torchwood and soon Casualty and Being Human – is one of the corporation’s busiest.
Yet Kane insists that both the NAO and the property industry fundamentally misunderstand what the BBC is trying to do. If they imagine that at Roath basin – or in Salford, Glasgow, Bristol or Belfast – the BBC is making a narrow property decision, then they are going to get it wrong. Very wrong.
Kane explains: “Roath is not a pure property project, and nor are any others of the projects we’ve embarked on to transform our estate. Of course, we want the right workplace for a creative organisation, and maximum benefit for minimum cost – but to focus on the property is to miss the big thing.
“We’re part of the social and economic fabric of this country so, in building on Pacific Quay and in Salford, we took a determined decision to go to the wrong side of the tracks, the wrong side of the River Clyde and the River Irwell, and bring hundreds of jobs to rundown areas. It’s a slow burn, but slowly regeneration is taking place.”
Roath – on the wrong side of Cardiff Bay – is another example of the same process. Kane says the BBC has learned from its experiences in Glasgow and Salford, and has agreed a different kind of deal (see box, p75). The agreement with the Welsh Assembly government is backed by developer Igloo, whose scheme stands in marked contrast to that provided by Peel at MediaCityUK in Manchester (see box, p75).
“There’s a real creative opportunity if we merge the existing creative skills in BBC Wales with the production skills we’re transferring from the Casualty production unit in Bristol. This will drive a real powerhouse of creativity,” he says.
Already, a handful of other substantial Cardiff-based media businesses are said to be planning to follow the BBC to Roath. Although Boomerang Plus chief executive Huw Eurig Davies declined to discuss his plans with EG, it is understood that his sports-to-children’s broadcasting group is looking closely at new facilities, with Roath on the shortlist. It moved to its Penarth Road headquarters in 2002.
Kane says: “I hope there’s scope here for real creative dividends at Roath, with plenty of spin-off from what we’re doing, including people commissioned to work for us. It seems a tremendous opportunity.”
The ambition has won plaudits – not least from Cardiff council and the Welsh Assembly government – but the Roath deal has not been achieved without pain.
Sources outside the BBC talk of their exasperation with the corporation over the two years during which the Roath deal was negotiated. Until Kane took personal charge of the project, there had been as many as eight “key contacts”, some of whom lasted only weeks.
Decision-making was slowed even further by the need to consult the production team on each of the shows made in Cardiff, and the Casualty team in Bristol.
Kane concedes that the NAO report – which concluded that the BBC had poorly defined objectives and could not claim value for money – contains some truths. “Yes, we did make mistakes. But we made most of them seven years ago and we’ve learned the lessons since,” he says.
“The aim of BBC Workspace is to be an agent for change in the BBC, to help open up more to our audiences, and to deliver better value. By working innovatively – which meant taking advantage of the bond market when we could, rather then using the standard PFI approach to get the best of public-private sector partnering – we have done what we promised, which is to lower costs.”
Yet Kane believes that the property business should share some of the blame. “I’m a consumer of the output of the British property industry, and it still doesn’t want to understand who its real customers are. But we’re getting on with it,” he says, adding: “The property industry is hidebound by 20th-century thinking.”
It is still early days for the Roath basin, but already Kane is moving on. Earlier this year, he took the first steps towards moving the 730 staff at BBC Bristol from their former Whiteladies Road studios. And he is beginning to talk to ministers in Northern Ireland about a move for the BBC in Belfast.
“Our property strategy is a consequence of our creative strategy,” says Kane. The success or failure of plans to build a production centre at Roath basin will prove whether the corporation has that strategy right.
The official details of the BBC’s deal in Cardiff are being kept under heavy wraps. “I couldn’t possibly comment,” says the BBC’s Chris Kane.
Some of the details are, however, widely known. The BBC is understood to have signed a 25-year lease with the Welsh Assembly government – and not, as had been widely thought, with developer Igloo.
It is likely to mean the BBC is committed to little upfront capital spending. This was similar to a deal in Salford’s MediaCityUK. Here, keeping the capital spend down was central, and the BBC’s agreement with Peel Media means that Peel provides the studio and production facilities. These facilities could also be used by ITV or independent producers.
Kane hints that the BBC is well aware of its strength as anchor tenant. Asked if, like a department store in a shopping centre, the BBC’s rent is negligible or nil, Kane again answers: “I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Manchester-based regeneration specialist Igloo has preferred to stay in the background, despite its key role in bringing the BBC to Roath basin.
Igloo is the Welsh Assembly government’s partner at Roath basin, where it already has outline planning permission for 2.2m sq ft of commercial floorspace.
With offices just a stone’s throw from the BBC production facility now being built at Salford’s MediaCityUK (pictured), Igloo director Mark Hallett says: “Roath is very different. The scale alone sets it apart. We’ve looked at Salford and at the experience at Pacific Quay in Glasgow, and we realise the key to these projects was not just securing one big occupier – scoring one big win – but about targeting a range of occupiers of different sizes and different uses.”
He adds: “It’s about working with young start-up companies as much as big corporations.”
Igloo is unlikely to try to replicate the high-gloss corporate appeal of Peel’s MediaCityUK. “We are not looking to win a BCO Office of the Year award,” says Hallett. “I think we’ll be more edgy, more funky.”
Roath Basin development
The Roath Basin drama production centre plan is part of the BBC’s commitment to double network production from Wales by 2016. The 27-acre site, close to the National Assembly, is owned by the Welsh Assembly government. Plans include a 215,000 sq ft production facility.
Planning permission was granted last month, and the first site remediation works begin this week. Tenders for the main construction contract are now being considered.
The BBC complex will form the second phase of Media Capital, which includes and complements the proposals for a drama production centre announced this week by BBC Cymru Wales.
The intention, say Welsh ministers, is to create a dynamic media hub and a core for a cluster of independent production companies – businesses that are providing highly skilled jobs.
The creative industry is one of the sectors that the Welsh Assembly government has identified as being crucial in terms of the future development of the Welsh economy.
Today BBC Cymru Wales produces drama output at two sites, at Llandaff in Cardiff and at a second site near Pontypridd.
