Last week, the BBC concluded the television event of the year with the triumphant final of Celebrity Traitors – appointment-to-view TV that united the nation. A few days later, it lost both its director general, Tim Davie, and his most likely successor, Deborah Turness, amid a scandal ignited by the Telegraph over apparent failures of its journalism.
BBC insiders had spent the week warning that the corporation was being wrongfooted by a deliberate attack on its top management at a critical time for the corporation – which needs to renovate its charter and secure a future after the licence fee. The supposed “dossier” at the centre of the scandal was an unsolicited report written by a single former advisory board member, Michael Prescott. The Panorama at the centre of the scandal had been on iPlayer for a year, with no complaints. Its central allegation – that Donald Trump incited the January 6 riots – is true. How has this resulted in the loss of two of the BBC’s top bosses?
Well-placed sources inside the BBC insist both Davie and Turness chose to quit, rather than being forced out. Davie was expected to depart soon – amid suggestions that he might want a job at the Premier League, and to give his successor chance to run the charter renegotiation process.
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Turness, by contrast, was widely tipped to take the DG job, but felt her position was untenable after a disastrous week. The result is that the BBC has to find a unicorn executive, acceptable to its critics, able to run a multibillion-pound corporation, manage relentless media attacks, all while securing a funding model fit for the 21st century. Such a candidate probably doesn’t exist.
BBC staff are left anxious. Many of them didn’t much like Davie – but none think his departure is good for them. The influence of board member Robbie Gibb, a former Downing Street chief of staff under Theresa May and the brother of a former Tory MP, is viewed with deep suspicion.
The BBC needs a champion if it’s going to survive. Getting one will need the government and the board to have a bold plan. There are no signs, alas, that anyone has one.
Meanwhile, one definite error of judgement at the BBC came when tabloid dinosaur Kelvin MacKenzie made it on to its news shows to pontificate about the “scandal”.
The former Sun editor is hardly the man to criticise anyone over journalistic ethics. In the wake of the April 1989 Hillsborough disaster, he published the vile “The Truth” front page, which falsely blamed Liverpool fans for a tragedy that killed 97 of their own. Brought back as a columnist, he departed in 2017 after comparing the footballer Ross Barkley, who is from a mixed-race family, to a gorilla.
