Very interesting...

Until now my son assumed that there would have been a significant migration of technical staff from the ITV companies to the BBC and some the other way. Is there a reason why it rarely happened? Was it a result of snobbiness and disdain for ITV technical staff in the BBC? Nowadays it's next to impossible to get a job without work experience in exactly the same job and training is a dirty word, but is the BBC an exception to the rule?

I again jencam,

It is now 42 years since I shook the dust from my chariot wheels, but I cannot see that it would be likely that there is any change in the internationally unique position of the Beeb's engineering training school? To the best of my belief BBC trained engineers are in great demand and, yes, it is possible that there is a (was a) bit of snobbery in job selection - but that surely is not surprising when the BBC has the only training facility which is bound to be superior to hands-on experience.

It is no accident that Wood Norton is exceptionally equipped; during the war years it was set up as a standby for the BBC hub in broadcasting house; the idea was that if the Germans managed to lay an egg on (or in) B.H. then business could proceed as normal to all outward appearances. Premises were equipped with communications and music lines, with studios and sound recording suites - in fact, a miniature replica of BH. Come the end of the war what to do with it? Option one, of course, was simply to destroy but a superior option 2 was to utilise it for the burgeoning training school?

With the coming of television. It was, but a minor expense to add the necessary equipment - it is hard to believe that any other organisation would have spent the cash in setting up a rival?

Given that the BBC had the tried and tested means to train engineers in his own image the only access to any other organisation would be to pay to have their would-be engineers trained. I wouldn't declare this as a fact, but I do believe that students were enrolled from international sources.

I think the answer to your final question is yes, the BBC has never needed to welcome staff from outside - rather has it lost staff because independent companies, backed by advertising revenues, are willing to offer more money. What keeps the majority of BBC loyalties is the near perfect safety; not that their pay is in anyway niggardly , but the union movement got its foot inside the door and started up the old them-versus-us nonsense.

it is quite understandable, of course, if today there is a failure in the job-security aspect; the BBC is strapped for cash limited by the amount of licence fees that the politicians are prepared to hand over yet hey have forged ahead first with television, then with colour television, then with FM radio, video recording and anything else you can think of?

I do believe that they have cut down on some worldwide services and, regrettably, a new collection of sprogs on the "top floor" have sacrificed the corporation's reputation.

That's about enough I think,

Ken Green