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The Â鶹Éç is determined to learn the lessons from a year of "incredible highs" and some "desperate lows", Â鶹Éç Trust Chairman Lord Patten pledged today.

Launching the Â鶹Éç's Annual Report and Accounts for 2012/13 with Director-General Tony Hall, Lord Patten highlighted the success of the Â鶹Éç's Olympics coverage which surpassed all expectations, with 2,500 hours of television coverage reaching 90 per cent of the UK population – the highest audience for any event since measurements began.

However, he said that the failings and low points for the Â鶹Éç this year were significant - particularly the Jimmy Savile revelations, the related Newsnight crises, and the departure of George Entwistle as Director-General. The Â鶹Éç seriously let down both itself and licence fee payers.

The Annual Report reveals that the Â鶹Éç's performance amongst audiences remains very strong – it continues to reach 96 per cent of the UK population every week and audiences consume an average of 19 hours of Â鶹Éç content each week.

It also shows that the Â鶹Éç delivered £580m efficiency savings under the continuous improvement programme, contributing to the £2bn cumulative savings delivered over 2008/09 to 2012/13. This means the Â鶹Éç exceeded the three per cent year-on-year efficiency savings target set by the Trust. So far this has been achieved without a detrimental impact on audience numbers or appreciation scores.

The Trust has also today published a letter from the Director-General to the Chairman setting out his approach to reforming the Â鶹Éç's management culture – one of the actions required of the Executive by the Â鶹Éç Trust following the findings of Nick Pollard's review into the Newsnight investigation into Savile.

In the letter, the Director-General sets out that he is approaching this challenge in three ways – refreshing his top team, re-emphasising the Â鶹Éç's values and embedding greater personal accountability. He concludes that there are positive signs of progress in addressing the challenges highlighted by the Pollard report, but that change will require leadership, hard work and focus over the coming months and years.

Lord Patten said:

"This has truly been a year like no other, with some incredible highs and some desperate lows. In both, there are lessons that we must learn.

"The Olympics was a high watermark, both in terms of content and in signposting the way to a digital future. It was evidence that at its best, the Â鶹Éç remains the world's greatest broadcaster, providing coverage of a scale, quality and ambition to the whole nation in a way that I believe no other broadcaster could.

"But it was also one of the most turbulent years in the Â鶹Éç's history. While the priority is clearly the impact on his victims, the Jimmy Savile affair and all that came after it revealed some serious weaknesses in the Â鶹Éç's culture and behaviours. I welcome the Director-General's update on how he is addressing these issues, which we also publish today.

"Similarly it has been a mixed year for the Â鶹Éç on value for money. We continue to drive down talent and senior management pay and to meet challenging efficiency targets, but the failed DMI technology project and unjustifiable severance payments to some senior staff highlight that we have got much further to go in showing licence fee payers that we always treat their investment in us with the respect it deserves."

Â鶹Éç Director-General Tony Hall said:

"I am extremely proud of the Â鶹Éç that I have seen and experienced over the last four months. This is a creative organisation that produces brilliant programmes. And whilst this Annual Report covers a period of time that predates my arrival, for me it highlights the great successes that we are capable of achieving whilst also reminding me that there is much we can and must to learn from some terrible events of the past.

"Talking to staff and audiences up and down the country I have heard their pride in the Â鶹Éç but also their frustrations. Since starting in this role I have made it a priority to address some of these problems. From redundancy payments through to the failed DMI project, the Â鶹Éç has not always been the steward of public money that it should have been. This is changing and we now need to take further steps to ensure that the Â鶹Éç is better run and more efficient.

"Although this process can be painful I believe it is necessary to ensure we keep earning back public trust in the Corporation. At the same time we must build on our strengths so that we can serve audiences even better providing them with a creative Â鶹Éç that is well run and with audiences at the heart of everything we do."

The annual report shows that during 2012/13:

• The Â鶹Éç continued to reach almost every household in the UK, with 96 per cent of people accessing Â鶹Éç content via TV, radio and online every week.Ìý Â鶹Éç Online reached 48.1 per cent of the population.

• Over 90 per cent of the TV population saw some of the Â鶹Éç’s Olympic programming; 52 million viewers watched the Â鶹Éç’s record-breaking 24 streams of Olympics coverage, with 32 million accessing online coverage – of which 8.6 million watched coverage on mobile browsers, in the first truly ‘Digital Olympics’.Ìý 60 per cent of the audience agreed that Â鶹Éç digital media made their Olympics experience better.

• Although public trust in the Â鶹Éç was hit by the Jimmy Savile revelations and the Newsnight crises, it is now recovering to previous levels.Ìý

• Digital radio continued to grow, with a third of all hours spent listening to live radio being via a digital platform, 6 Music achieving a record weekly reach of 1.9 million between October and December 2012, and 1Extra and 4 Extra reaching record numbers of listeners.Ìý

• Â鶹Éç News continued to be the most popular news broadcaster, with 82 per cent of UK adults watching, listening or reading the Â鶹Éç’s coverage of stories from the Eurozone crisis, the escalating violence in Syria, and at home the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics, and the year of unseasonable weather, floods and freezing temperatures.Ìý

• The Trust approved revised plans under the Â鶹Éç’s Delivering Quality First efficiency programme which will protect Local Radio from taking a disproportionate share of spending cuts following the agreement of a new licence fee settlement in 2010.

• The Trust continued its drive to ensure the very highest editorial standards, both by hearing complaints about editorial services under a revised, more responsive complaints framework and by carrying out a review into the breadth of opinion on the Â鶹Éç’s news, factual and current affairs services.

• The Trust completed reviews of the Asian Network and Local Radio and launched reviews of Â鶹Éç Online and Red Button and Â鶹Éç children’s programming.

• On value for money the Trust commissioned National Audit Office reviews of the move to Salford and severance payments and wider benefits for senior Â鶹Éç manages. Both have now been published.

Notes to editorsÌý

1. The Annual Report and Accounts 2012/13 and the Full Financial Statements can be found at:Ìýwww.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/

2. The Â鶹Éç’s Annual Report and Accounts and Full Financial Statements are produced pursuant to article 45 of the Royal Charter and are laid in Parliament

3. The Trust is also publishing the following documents alongside the Annual Report and Accounts:

• Â鶹Éç Trust Ìý(PDF, 131KB)
• Letter from the dated 13 June 2013 (PDF, 23KB)
• Purpose remit survey reportsÌýfor England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and a UK summary.
• The Â鶹Éç Trust’s observations on Ìý(PDF, 117KB)
• The Â鶹Éç Trust’s observations on , PDF file (572KB)
• for Part 1 of the Annual Report and Accounts (PDF, 109KB)
• Annual Reviews from Audience CouncilsÌýfor Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.

4. The Executive is also publishing the following documents alongside the Annual Report and Accounts

• Performance Against Â鶹Éç Public Commitments
• Â鶹Éç Management reviews for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales
• (PDF, 6.8MB), (PDF, 7.2MB)

5. Â鶹Éç Worldwide's Annual Review is published .

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