Entwistle is a perfectly reasonable if unspectacular choice…

Raymond Snoddy says that the appointment of George Entwistle as BBC director-general is a surprise, in light of his role in the Royal Pageant coverage, but as a BBC stalwart he will at least be respected in a role that is essentially thankless, where a daily kicking comes with the territory…

It is a natural cruelty in life that you can do worthy things for decades then make one mistake and that is what you are remembered for – forever.

Lord Armstrong had a distinguished career in the civil service but he is noted for only one thing – the slippery remark which must have seemed urbane at the time – that he had been “economical with the truth”.

A royal disappointment

So it is with George Entwistle, the new and rather surprising choice as director-general of the BBC, who as head of BBC Vision chaired the committee that organised the Royal Pageant.

Apologists in the BBC have appointed to the terrible weather, the technical problems and just a bit of bad luck.

In fact the problem was more serious than that and was deliberately planned. There was an unwillingness to let the event tell its own story without jazzing it up in crass ways.

It was particularly surprising that George Entwistle either suggested such a thing or acquiesced in someone else’s misjudgement, given that he is a serious minded former editor of Newsnight who ran Education and Knowledge and is steeped in the ethos of public service broadcasting.

Yet Sir Christopher Bland, the former chairman of the BBC, is almost certainly right when he argued that you choose a director-general for the longer term because you believe they are the right person for the job. You do not exclude anyone because a single programme, however embarrassing, has gone awry.

Strong case for the job

The real surprise is that he has got the job despite some senior BBC people believing that the vacancy had come a little early for him.

He has only been formally in charge of BBC Vision for around 15 months and had not run large departments before then.

Entwistle was always a serious and plausible runner but a third favourite in the eyes of many observers. He was one who has been involved in everything from Panorama and The Culture Show to Tomorrow’s World.

Although Entwistle must have made a strong case for the job, because the BBC chairman Lord Patton had the ability to create a real stir by appointing the first woman director-general of the BBC.

This would not have been tokenism. In Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, and Helen Boaden, director of news, there were two well-qualified candidates on offer.

In the real world the bookies’ favourite, the chief executive of communications regulator Ofcom, Ed Richards, always looked a long-shot.

Clever and capable of course, but he had never made a programme in his life and had spent his working life as a regulator and broadcasting strategist in the BBC and in the policy unit in Tony Blair’s Downing Street.

Challenges on the road ahead

The BBC needs another round of strategy and upheaval from an outsider like a hole in the head.

The licence fee settlement was set for the next five years and for the new director-general the skill is maintaining and if possible improving standards of creativity and morale at the same time as losing around another 2,000 jobs.

The second task is to argue the case for a new Royal Charter and licence fee with both the government and the public.

For both tasks an insider, someone who knows the ways of the BBC and understands what it stands for, was always to be preferred.

There is a pattern when all new or newish BBC chairman move to appoint their first director-general; they think they need someone fresh from outside to shake things up. They encourage such people to apply. Rumours spread.

Lionel Barbour, editor of the Financial Times and Jay Hunt of Channel 4 both had to deny they had gone for interview. Channel 4’s chief executive, David Abraham publicly ruled himself out of the race.

There were reports that four outsiders were interviewed and that one of them, in addition to Ed Richards – who will presumably now never be unmasked – was said to be involved in the second round.

What next for the other candidates?

At the end of the line the penny drops that the BBC is a unique organisation requiring knowledge and experience.

Anyway, even if the head of Google or Time Warner were capable of doing such a job they wouldn’t be in the slightest bit interested in taking a daily kicking for £450,000 a year and no share options.

The headhunters have done their job and earned their salary by lining up exotic left-field characters before one of the three obvious insiders is then chosen.

What will become now of Richards, however, who had to reveal himself because of potential conflicts of interest at Ofcom.

Some have argued that it will now be very difficult for Richards to remain at Ofcom. He has gambled and lost.

There have been immediate suggestions that Thomson may not want to stay at the BBC for much longer after being overlooked, and that a senior vacancy may therefore occur for Richards.

As Entwistle will not take over as director-general until the autumn, further early further changes at the top of the BBC are unlikely.

A steady hand

Overall Entwistle, whose career began with magazines at Haymarket before he became a BBC trainee in 1989, is a perfectly reasonable if unspectacular choice.

Like others before him he will almost certainly grow into the job and the often-miserable infantry in the corporation will at least recognise him as one of their own.

The good news is that people in the broadcasting industry get far too excited about who is going to be the next director-general.

It is a thankless job and, despite everything, the culture of the BBC is still sufficiently strong that the corporation sails on almost irrespective of who is in charge.

Somehow the BBC survived such very different director generals as John Birt and Greg Dyke and doubtless will survive Entwistle’s director-generalship, whatever he does or does not do.