"The BBC should no longer be held to ransom by performers who, if truth were told, owe a good 70% of their success to the production skills of the BBC itself, and all of their iconic recognisability to sheer exposure, achieved on the corporation's time and electricity."
I'm not sure where Libby Purves, in the Times, got the figure of 70% from, but, as a producer, I like it. She continues:
"The BBC made them. It can make others. I know this, because I know that if I am any good at radio it is because they gave me the practice, and the producers, from the age of 22. Not being deluded, I am even a bit grateful."
There's a natural tension between presenters and the behind-the-scenes people. Every day, presenters can find themselves at the sharp end of whatever bad decisions have been made in the production process; leaving them, rather than their producers, looking incompetent. But when things go well it's because they can make the most of a situation that has been created for them by their production team.
Relations across this great divide are usually supportive. But probably, on the whole, when it comes to mutual back-slapping the presenters do a bit more receiving than giving. Keeping the talent happy is part of a producer's job.
Most producers are secretly luvvies too. Like their more glamorous colleagues, they crave the odd word of praise. And that's what's so heart-warming about this rare public acknowledgment by a presenter:
Long memories remember the Famous Five, including the Beeb stars Angela Rippon and Michael Parkinson, who set up TV-am in the 1980s under the illusion that they - not their previous production teams - were magic. Turned out they weren't.
Libby, you are so right, and so kind. Mwa! (On both cheeks.)
