The BBC has chosen a former head of its news division to lead the broadcaster through a 'long, hard look' at itself as it struggles to recover from a scandal stemming from its coverage of child sex abuse.
Tony Hall, currently chief executive of the Royal Opera House, had been
chosen as the new director-general beginning in March, Chris Patten, chairman of the governing BBC Trust, said Thursday.
Hall, 61, worked at the BBC for 28 years, including a decade as director of news before taking the Royal Opera post in 2001. He succeeds George Entwistle, who resigned on November 10 after just 54 days as director-general.
The BBC has been shaken by controversy over a decision by its Newsnight programme not to run a report that one of its former stars, Jimmy Savile, was a serial abuser of young women.
Entwistle, who had stumbled in explaining why that happened, resigned after Newsnight broadcast a report which led to a prominent politician being falsely identified as a child abuser.
In a memo to staff, Patten said the BBC needed to restore its focus on “making great programmes.” “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,” Patten said.
“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,” he added. “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.”