David Elstein calls for breakup of BBC news in wake of Jimmy Savile scandal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/08/david-elstein-bbc-jimmy-savile

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David Elstein, the former Channel 5 and BSkyB executive, has called for the BBC Trust to be abolished and for the corporation's news and current affairs operation to be broken up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Elstein said the BBC Trust, chaired by Lord Patten, lacks the power it needs to respond properly to the scandal and the possible failures in culture and management require a much more ambitious reaction than the two internal inquiries set up by the corporation.

He added that the BBC's domination of news and current affairs, supplying 60% of all news consumed across TV, radio, online and newspapers, also needs to be tackled.

Elstein said the Savile scandal also showed that the director general's job needs to be changed, with the role of editor in chief of BBC output removed from the post's list of responsibilities.

"The arthritic response of the BBC to the Savile affair has exposed an unnecessarily complex management structure, a confused and confusing governance system, and an urgent need to break up the monolithic news and current affairs department," he said in a comment piece in Thursday's Times.

Elstein, who began his broadcasting career as a BBC current affairs producer in the 1960s, added: "Different news and current affairs programmes may have different agendas, but there is one overall structure for all the BBC's news output.

"That needs to change, urgently. The BBC's share of news consumption is still growing, primarily at the expense of ITV. We need to split up news and current affairs again. We need to divide radio and television, as the Swedes sensibly do. We need to reverse the decision to integrate the World Service into the BBC structure. There is even a case for splitting off the BBC News Channel as a separate editorial entity."

Elstein said the governance problems stem from 2006 when the old BBC board of governors was replaced by the trust in the wake of the "sexed up" Iraq dossier affair.

"The way the BBC is governed is a botched result of the last review of the BBC Charter in 2006," he said.

He added that the former BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland and director general Greg Dyke, who resigned in the wake of the Iraq dossier affair, had warned Jowell that the BBC Trust would lack sufficient authority and knowledge to control management.

The mistake was creating a trust and not giving the job of regulation to the wholly independent Ofcom, which regulates commercial broadcasters, said Elstein.

He said a new BBC governance system that mirrors Channel 4's should be put in place.

"We need to grasp the nettle of BBC governance. The corporation needs a combined board of executives and non-executives, with a non-executive chair who takes lead responsibility for appointing the director general," Elstein said. "The non-executives need to be appointed by Ofcom for fixed terms, with Ofcom regulating the BBC in the same way it regulates all other UK broadcasters."

His comments about the need to reform the BBC Trust were echoed by Sir Jeremy Isaacs, the former Channel 4 chief executive.

"I think the BBC, from the way that they handled this appalling business, have called into question not just the competence of senior executives or the chairman of the trust [Lord Patten] but they've called into question the entire governance of the BBC," Isaacs told The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday.

He said the governance of the BBC was "structurally wrong and has to be altered and we have to get to the real heart and core of the BBC in response to what's happened over Savile".

Elstein, a former BSkyB head of programmes and Channel 5 chief executive, said the recently departed director general Mark Thompson's explanation for not knowing Newsnight was investigating claims that Savile had abused children on BBC premises was a prime example of why the person in the top job at the corporation should not also be the editor in chief.

Thompson has said he did not know about the Newsnight investigation because nobody had flagged it up and there was too much else going on.

Elstein said that as an alternative to splitting its TV and radio operation, the BBC should split the position of director general between an editor in chief role and a chief executive.

"The BBC is too large and too complex for one person to be effective," said Elstein.

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