21st Century Wire Says: With the BBC, it’s an endless parade of Director Generals, as the public broadcaster is seen as reacting from one government related scandal to the next. Baron Hall of Birkenhead looks like a nice enough bloke, has a killer CV, but isn’t the whole purpose of the DG position designed as a highly paid office chair whose job it is to fall on his sword when the next meltdown takes place? History will really answer that question for us.
This latest appoint has once again, seen the state-funded gravy train give the nod to one of their own, ‘a safe pair of hands’, as it were. As we are well aware that the entire institution is in danger of collapsing under its own weight of corruption and self-regarding arrogance, we only give Lord Hall a finite reign over the controls – until the next debilitating crisis ensues. Questions on institutional paedophile Jimmy Savile OBE and who actually buried his report, Newsnight’s now completely fobbed-off child abuse investigation – and others still remains though, but will any of them be answered? It’s time to target the BBC Trust and see exactly what it is, and isn’t doing for the broadcaster’s license paying public.
The question still linger though: who leaked the Newsnight name of Lord McAlpine in the Steve Messham investigation? Was it someone in the BBC, the BIJ, or someone in the Murdoch press exacting revenge on the Beeb? Will we ever know? And why did the Beed pay out of court on a libel accusation – if they didnt actually libel anyone on air? We need answers – because if a public broadcaster is forking out large sums of money to private individuals, it’s in the public interest to know!
BBC confirms Tony Hall to be appointed new Director General
By Rob Williams
The BBC has appointed Tony Hall – Lord Hall of Birkenhead – as the new Director General of the corporation.
Lord Hall, who is currently chief executive of the Royal Opera House, was head of BBC News and Current Affairs from 1996 to 2001.
He is expected to start in the role in early March, and the BBC said in the interim period Tim Davie will remain as Acting Director General.
The appointment of Lord Hall follows a tumultuous few months for the BBC, which culminated in the resignation of the former
Director General George Entwistle earlier this month after just 54 days in the job. Entwistle left his job on 10 November after a Newsnight report into child abuse allegations in North Wales was found to have incorrectly named a Tory peer.
Public trust in the BBC is said to have been knocked by the furore and a number of inquiries are under way into the fallout from the Savile problems.
Lord Hall will be paid £450,000 in the role – the same level of salary as his predecessor – and his appointment was unanimously agreed by Trustees this morning.
BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten said: “While there are still very serious questions to be answered by the on-going inquiries, it is in the interests of licence fee payers that the BBC now starts to refocus on its main purpose – making great programmes that audiences love and trust.
“In doing this it will need to take a long, hard look at the way it operates and put in place the changes required to ensure it lives up to the standards that the public expects. Tony Hall is the right person to lead this and I am delighted that he is taking on this role. For its part I want to make sure that the Trust gives Tony Hall whatever help and support he needs to re-build the BBC’s management around him.
“Tony Hall has been an insider and is a currently an outsider. As an ex-BBC man he understands how the Corporation’s culture and behaviour make it, at its best, the greatest broadcaster in the world. And from his vantage point outside the BBC, he understands the sometimes justified criticisms of the Corporation – that it can be inward looking and on occasions too institutional…
