BBC director general Matt Brittin urged employees to be “a bit more Elvis – a little less conversation, a little more action” during an all-staff call this week, according to the Guardian.
The Guardian reports that Brittin has taken the job at a time of huge crisis, with money short, jobs being cut and entire channels likely to be culled to stem the tide.
Writing in the Guardian, columnist Stuart Heritage said the Elvis appeal was “clearly” not great, and suggested that Brittin could instead quote other song lyrics at his next staff call.
Among his proposals was the Rolling Stones line that you cannot always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need, which Heritage credited Mick Jagger with getting right. Staff may wish for a bigger commissioning budget, more exclusive coverage of big sporting events and a functioning BBC Three, he wrote.
Heritage also floated a message of endurance: that it does not matter how many cuts the BBC faces or how many staff it loses, because the corporation’s ethos is to inform, educate and entertain regardless. On that reading, Sophie Raworth could deliver the news over Zoom from inside a wardrobe, and the Olympics could be replaced by hours of footage of raindrops racing down a window.
Another option, he wrote, was a rallying cry built on survival at any cost as the media landscape undergoes permanent transformation: “What do we want? Survival, if only in a heavily diminished capacity. When do we want it? Now!”
Given the BBC’s belt-tightening, Heritage wrote that every penny must be used to best advantage, meaning switching on the office bathroom lights is too expensive and therefore banned, with staff left to use the torch on their phones.
He added that working out what to do with Nigel Farage is an enormous part of running the BBC, and that continuity with the previous administration would mean putting him on television at every possible opportunity. Giving so much airtime to someone who wants to abolish the licence fee hurts the corporation, Heritage wrote, though he suggested asking whether Farage could guest host The One Show for a couple of weeks.
The piece was published by the Guardian on Friday 9 October 2026 at 16.57 BST and last modified at 17.55 BST.
COMMENTS