Mark Byford - DDG and Head of BBC Journalism

Breaking News ....



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TWITTER.COM/BBCJONSOPEL
11-10-2010 @ 21:1

I'm sure the slim percentage of viewers who actually know who he is, probably don't give a fig. Hardly breaking news

perhaps if the door hits him on the way out his replacement can give a sniveling and stomach turning apology.

oh they're not replacing him? well that's ok then.

oh well I'm glad you've cleared that up. Perhaps the BBC should run all information past your good self in future to make sure its newsworthy. Heaven forbid anyone actually learn something from the news or find out about a mildly obscure thing.

I don't think it's not newsworthy. Moreover, it's another example of the BBC reporting on its own internal HR, and giving it disproportionate importance.

Jon Sopel intones as if it's a massive story...rather than a civil servant leaving his job.

He is the second highest person in the corporation. Not only that but the removal of the post gives it greater prominence given that there has been so much made of the size and pay of BBC management recently. Indeed it could be possible that it is an attempt to curry favour with Jeremy Hunt and to show that the BBC is willing to decrease some of the more "bloated" parts of itself.

In addition to that, Byford became notorious when he apologised in a rather bizarre manner at the end of the Hutton inquiry following the resignation of Greg Dyke.

The BBC, like it or not, is a vast and important part of the public sector. If the second highest person in the DWP or MOD was suddenly made redundant and the post removed it would be news, as this deserves to be.

Last week the news was full of the resignation of a man in charge of CEOP, a vastly more insignificant body. Perhaps that should have also been not in the news given that it's an HR issue.

It's a bit more than that.

The BBC has made hundreds - possibly thousands - of people redundant over the last few years, yet not made significant reductions in their very senior management. He's the first.

More recently the BBC have been heavily criticised by the incoming government (particularly the Tories) over the levels of executive pay, so axeing a very senior post and not replacing it could also be seen as a politically motivated move. That is news worthy.

Couple that with the reputed £900k pay-off (one year of notice, one year of salary as redundancy) and a huge pension pot (second only to Jenny Abramsky I believe?) - and that is also a pretty major story.

Though I'm getting a bit sick of comparison with the PM's salary and pension pot. Most PMs end up earning HUGE amounts once they leave office - the job is a loss-leader and a virtual blank-cheque...

I never really knew what the Deputy Director General was for, am I right in thinking that he was the first (and now last) one? As someone who saw one redundancy round after another at the BBC, It's nice to see one which involves senior management rather than those actually making the programmes

I don't think anyone will mourn him leaving or the post going, he did himself no favours with the big apology speech after Greg Dyke left.

Yes, Jon even tweeted about it which he rarely does when he is on-air.

Is the devil in the detail here? Is he standing down as Deputy DG but remaining as Head of BBC Journalism?

No - he's taking redundancy. Helen Boaden will join the Exec Board in her current role as Head of News.

No - John Birt was Deputy DG under Michael Checkland ISTR. When he was Deputy DG he oversaw the merger of News (based at TVC) and Current Affairs (based at Lime Grove at the time)

I think the role has historically been used to support the DG. Byford's appointment was, presumably, a response to Hutton. Birt's appointment was presumably to support the non-programme maker Michael Checkland, at a time when the BBC was under fire from the Tory government.

His predecessor, Alasdair Milne, had been forced to resign under a new Chairman of Governors (Marmaduke Hussey) after a number of editorial disputes with the government (Falkland Islands coverage, Libya Air strikes, Real Lives, Secret Society etc.)