Lord Puttnam Out Of BBC Chairman Race

Wednesday’s deadline for applicants wanting to apply for the vacant BBC chairman role has seen Lord Puttnam rule himself out of the running.

In an article in this week’s Spectator magazine, Lord Puttnam said that following some personal agonising over whether to apply for the role, he had decided not to, despite being approached by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who are overseeing the recruitment process.

However, Lord Puttnam said: “I will continue to be a vocal supporter of the BBC and all that, at its best, it continues to represent.

“As an institution it is far from perfect, but it does continue to offer the possibility of an eventual victory for sanity over nihilism in the evolution of the nation’s media output.”

“It’s the right decision for me. The bottom line is that having reached a point in my life at which, living in Ireland, I have never been happier I couldn’t find a way of justifying the possibility of upsetting that.”

Michael Grade left the BBC to become executive chairman of ITV in a surprise move last November (see BBC Chairman Jumps Ship To ITV Top Job).

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