Panorama editor Tom Giles is to leave next month to work on a blueprint to “shape BBC current affairs for the future” before stepping up to a “senior role” in the Autumn, the BBC has announced.
The move will see Ceri Thomas, head of programmes, edit Panorama for the next six months until the BBC can make a permanent appointment.
In a statement, the BBC said its current affairs output had come to a “cross roads” with traditional TV audiences falling whilst new forms appear online.
The BBC Trust has now made it clear that the BBC needs to “devise a coherent strategy for current affairs in all its forms and on every platform – both in commissioning and in its output.”
Giles, who has been the editor of Panorama for the last four years, will lead the review looking at current affairs across TV, radio and online with a “view to reshaping the structure and content of what the BBC does”.
“For the last four years, Tom Giles has been an exceptional editor of Panorama,” said James Harding, director of BBC News and current affairs. “We should all be proud of the programme under his tireless, hands-on editorship.
“Four years is a lifetime as Panorama editor and Tom and I have been talking for a while about how we can exploit his many talents and enable him to move up in the BBC. It is my belief, given his unique range of experience in journalism and film-making that he is the best person to devise a blueprint to shape what we do in Current Affairs for a long time to come.
“In the short time since I’ve been at the BBC, the Military Reaction Force in Northern Ireland film and Saving Syria’s Children, among others, have demonstrated the great quality of its productions.
“He and the Panorama team can also point to the programme’s track record on some really big stories: corruption allegations against Fifa officials and Winterbourne View obviously – but in the past few weeks we’ve seen its massive impact in the powerful film on elderly care and in Patrick Mercer’s resignation as MP after its Cash for Questions investigation.”
Mr Harding added: “Ceri’s experience as a brilliant editor of the Today programme – his inquisitive nature, intellectual rigour and journalistic steel – will be invaluable. I am very grateful to him for taking charge of Panorama over the coming months.”
