BBC World Service journalists asked for money-making ideas

theguardian reporting:

Reporters for the BBC World Service have been asked in an internal email to help come up with new commercial opportunities for the corporation.

BBC World News director Peter Horrocks has asked journalists to come up with money-making ideas to help increase revenues for the corporation’s international services. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

BBC World Service journalists have been asked to come up with money-making ideas to help increase revenues for the corporation's international services, leading to fears over editorial independence.
Peter Horrocks, the director of BBC World News, has sent an email to the 2,400 staff working in the division – which includes the World Service, BBC World News channel and BBC.com – telling them they need to consider income and exploit new commercial opportunities to maximise the value they create with their journalism.
Horrocks' email lists income as one of the four objectives as staff must consider when they prepare for upcoming appraisal meetings with their managers.
"I would like each of you to contribute to the delivery of these objectives ... let us know if you have any ideas on how we can strengthen our commercial focus and grow income ... these objectives apply to all parts of Global News: editorial and non-editorial as no matter where you work you can help meet these objectives," Horrocks wrote.
A BBC spokesman said journalists had not been ordered to come up with money making schemes. He said no-one had been given financial targets and editorial independence would not be compromised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/25/bbc-journalists-asked-money-making-ideas?newsfeed=true