The talent is out there

Angie Stephenson's dissertation on broadening the BBC's talent base has become a £6m recruitment drive. David Lister meets her

Three years ago, when Angie Stephenson worked at the now-defunct Broadcast section of the BBC, then its commissioning arm, she took a BBC-sponsored MBA at Bradford University. For her dissertation she wrote a paper called "The Role of Talent in 21st-Century Broadcasting." It discussed how the corporation could widen its talent base from the Oxbridge graduates that tended to fill the BBC trainee schemes, grow a talent base that reflected the UK and "broaden the roots into the business".

She found that senior colleagues at the time, including Alan Yentob, Matthew Bannister and Jana Bennett, had been thinking along similar lines. They agreed that the BBC should go out on the road and scour the country for presenters, sports commentators, actors for soap dramas, news trainees for local radio.

Now Greg Dyke, the director general, has recommended that the BBC board put £2m a year into the Stephenson scheme. It has been running for over a year on an experimental basis, but the new money and board approval guarantees its funding for three more years.

On Thursday, Angie Stephenson will brief the governors on how the scheme will change the BBC's recruitment procedures. "It's the sort of ballsy thing that Angie does," said one senior colleague of the head of Talent. "To be honest, the BBC really only saw this as a worthy diversion at first. But she has turned it into a major initiative which appeals to Dyke's vision of a more diverse BBC."

Stephenson has been at the corporation for 10 years and worked previously in marketing and research at ITV after graduating from Goldsmith's College, London.

Now she is beginning to see her old MBA dissertation translated into action: "We have to get away from the old BBC habit of jobs being discussed over a drink in Bloomsbury," she says. "Historically, the BBC trainee schemes were also very Oxbridge dominated. The BBC has to be visibly more proactive, and connect with people right round the UK, so that we can grow a talent base as diverse as Britain today.

"Someone can turn up to one of our auditions up and down the country and end up as a sports presenter or with a part in EastEnders. A spotty geek in his bedroom could become an interactive presenter and host a live chat on the web."

This is undoubtedly music to Mr Dyke's ears. But there is another part of the Stephenson agenda that seems to have the welcome aim of taking some BBC programmes upmarket. Her most immediate quest is to find scientists and academics to present programmes, rather than the B-list celebrities too often found fronting shows demanding specialist knowledge.

BBC executives accept that science is "the new rock'n'roll" but that they do not have sufficient people on staff knowledgeable enough to present programmes. Academics, museum directors and other specialists in the field will now be wooed, with scouting teams going up and down the country, and adverts placed in cinemas and even music stores.

"For science programming, Lord Robert Winston is a great presenter who can project his passions to an audience," says Stephenson. "We want many more such experts in their fields, and we want them to stay in their fields and also present programmes. Certainly, there's an increase in thirst among the public for knowledge of those subjects.

"There are scientists who would never dream they could be on the BBC. We have all gone out to dinner parties with people who are waxing lyrical on their subject. They are the sort of people I want to get on TV, specialists with deep knowledge."

Among the BBC Talent successes so far, Bernard Merrick, a former butcher, was cast in an episode of Casualty, Sheila Clancy, a 71-year-old auditioned in London and was cast in the daytime drama series Doctors; and Alan Carr, a credit card lost-and-stolen operator and part-time comedian, is to work with Steve Coogan.

Angie Stephenson says: "On our side we have to attract a new generation by ensuring that this is a creative and dynamic and fun place to work."

Achieving that might entail a few more dissertations.