By Simon Bond

   Greg Dyke started work this week as the new director general of the BBC and immediately launched into his battle plan to divert an initial $160 million into program development that he believes is currently wasted on management and bureaucracy.
     Always a populist, Dyke's first move was against what he sees as the fat-cat culture of the BBC's senior management, announcing the end of perks such as chauffeured-driven cars. 
     Under the old system BBC directors and their wives received cars as part of the job.
      Much to the delight of the UK's tabloid newspapers, it was revealed earlier this week that the wife of the outgoing director general, Lord Birt, had a top-of-the-range Range Rover with CD player and satellite navigation system.
    The shakeup is set to shed up to 1,000 middle management jobs, and a new executive structure is being put in place designed to give Dyke hands-on control with some 15 new divisions run by directors reporting to him.
    Although he finally got his chance to swing into action this week, Dyke has been ''shadowing'' his predecessor in the job for the last six months,  an ordeal that is at odds with his usual style of television management, which so far has been to arrive like a whirlwind, hit the place hard and then move on. He has now completed the listening and learning and the time has come for a dose of his famous lightning decision-making.
     The initial cuts are an important first step in Dyke's agenda to find a total of $1.6 billion in efficiency savings over the next five years.
     If he can deliver this, the government has promised the to increase the TV license fee that funds the BBC by above the rate of inflation. This cash will come on top of the £64 million transfer from bureaucracy to program development promised by BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland.
      Dyke will be in his element in the new role. During a stint at the broadcaster TVS in the late 1980s, he found a bloated organization carrying layers of middle managers.
    Dyke took his axe to it and as a result, TVS produced roughly twice as much revenue per person employed than big ITV companies. 
    He repeated the trick at LWT, downsizing and allowing revenues to flow directly to the bottom-line instead of salary packets. The company's share price rocketed, making Dyke a multi-millionaire.
     As long ago as 1993 Dyke attended a BBC management think tank and, with characteristic bluntness, told the corporation that it needed to "hack and hack again" to cut down staff. 
    More recently Dyke had direct dealings with BBC bureaucracy in his capacity as head of Pearsons TV. He wound up a number of joint ventures with the BBC when fellow executives complained that getting a clear cut-decision out of the corporation was like "swimming treacle."
     Dyke is also coming in with a fresh view on some of the BBC's peripheral interests. 
    He is understood to be close to securing a private-sector partner for Beeb.com, the online service targeted at an international audience, and his advisers are reported to be planning an IPO.
    Dyke is also thought to be considering plans to establish a public-private joint venture to act as a separate BBC property management company.
      Enough sacred cows have been slaughtered this week to demonstrate that Dyke is no respecter of personage. He is presenting himself as genuinely welcoming of new ideas - no matter how apparently crazy - from anybody, regardless of formal rank or status.
    Indeed, "Dare to be different" is one of his slogans. "Encourage the wackos" is another!
    Which is to say, stayed tuned for a very different BBC in short order.

-Simon Bond covers European media for Media Life, writing form outside of London.

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