.
(from 2007 to 2017). Since 2017 the Director-General has been appointed by the
.
To date nineteen individuals, all of whom have been men, have been appointed Director-General, plus an additional two who were appointed in an acting capacity only. The current Director-General is
on 1 September 2020.
Directors-General of BBC (early) .. Ogilvie, Sir Frederick Wolff ..
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith,
KT,
GCVO,
GBE,
CB,
TD,
PC (20 July 1889 – 16 June 1971), was a
Scottish broadcasting executive who
established the
tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In
1922 he was employed by the BBC (
British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its
general manager; in
1923 he became its
managing director and in
1927 he was employed as the
Director-General of the
British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His
concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by trade, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger than life figure who was a pioneer in his field.
Reith had
no broadcasting experience when he replied to an advertisement in
The Morning Post for a general manager for an
as-yet unformed British Broadcasting Company in
1922. He later admitted that he felt he possessed the credentials necessary to "manage any company". He managed to retrieve his original application from a post box after re-thinking his approach, guessing that his Aberdonian background would curry more favour with Sir William Noble, the Chairman of the Broadcasting Committee.
In his new role, he was, in his own words, "confronted with problems of which I had no experience:
Copyright and
performing rights;
Marconi patents; associations of concert artists, authors, playwrights, composers, music publishers, theatre managers, wireless manufacturers."
The
British Broadcasting Company was
part-share owned by a committee of members of the wireless industry, including
British Thomson-Houston,
The General Electric Company,
Marconi and
Metropolitan-Vickers. However,
Reith had been
in favour of the company's being taken into public ownership, as he felt that despite the boards under which he had served so far, allowing him a high degree of latitude on all matters, not all future members might do so. Although opposed by some, including members of the Government, the
BBC became a corporation in 1927.
Reith was knighted the same year.
Reith's autocratic approach became the stuff of BBC legend. His preferred approach was one of
benevolent dictator, but with
built-in checks to his power. Throughout his life, Reith remained convinced that that approach was the best way to run an organisation. Later Director-General
Greg Dyke, profiling Reith in 2007, noted that the
term Reithian has entered the dictionary to
denote a style of management, particularly with relation to broadcasting. The term
"Reithianism" describes certain principles of broadcasting associated with Lord Reith. These include an
equal consideration of all viewpoints, probity, universality and a commitment to public service. Reith summarised the BBC's purpose in three words:
inform, educate, entertain; this remains part of the organisation's
mission statement to this day. It has also been
adopted by broadcasters throughout the world, notably the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States.
Reith earned a reputation for
prudishness in sexual matters. There is an old BBC legend that he once caught an announcer kissing a secretary and decreed that in future the announcer must not read the late-night religious programme
The Epilogue. In fact, this may have been inspired by his
catching the Chief Engineer, Peter Eckersley, not just kissing but being
in flagrante with an actress on a studio table.
He was to be somewhat embarrassed when one of his staff ran off with the quite new wife of the then rising young writer
Evelyn Waugh. Reith also had to deal with
Eckersley after the BBC Chief Engineer had a
rather public affair with a married woman on the staff. Up to the
WW2 any member of BBC staff involved in a
divorce could
lose their job.
Under Reith, the
BBC did not broadcast on Sunday before 12:30 PM, to give listeners time to
attend church, and for the rest of the day broadcast only
religious services, classical music and other
non-frivolous programming. European commercial stations
Radio Normandie and
Radio Luxembourg competed with the BBC on "Reith Sunday" and other days of the week by broadcasting more
popular music.
Audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the
BBC, a
government agency which had a
monopoly on broadcasting. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast, "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was
no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a
tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the
BBC emphasised service for a national, rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity.
In
1926, Reith came into conflict with the Government during the
1926 United Kingdom general strike. The
BBC bulletins reported, without comment, all sides in the dispute, including the
Trades Union Congress's and of
union leaders.
Reith attempted to arrange a broadcast by the opposition Labour Party but it was
vetoed by the government, and he had to refuse a request to allow a representative Labour or Trade Union leader to put the case for the miners and other workers.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made a national broadcast about the strike from Reith’s house and coached by Reith. When
Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party, asked to make a broadcast in reply,
Reith supported the request. However,
Baldwin was
"quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith unhappily refused the request. MacDonald complained that the BBC was "biased" and was "misleading the public" while other Labour Party figures were just as critical.
Philip Snowden, the former Labour
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of those who wrote to the
Radio Times to complain.
Reith's reply also appeared in the Radio Times,
admitting the BBC had not had complete liberty to do as it wanted. He recognised that at a time of emergency the government was never going to give the company complete independence, and he appealed to Snowden to understand the constraints he had been under.
"We do not believe that any other Government, even one of which Mr Snowden was a member, would have allowed the broadcasting authority under its control greater freedom than was enjoyed by the BBC during the crisis."
The
Labour leadership was not the only high-profile body denied a chance to comment on the strike. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, wanted to broadcast a "peace appeal" drawn up by church leaders which called for an immediate end to the strike, renewal of government subsidies to the coal industry and no cuts in miners' wages.
Davidson telephoned Reith about his idea on 7 May, saying he had spoken to the Prime Minister,
Stanley Baldwin, who had said he would not stop the broadcast, but would prefer it not to happen. Reith later wrote: "A nice position for me to be in between Premier and Primate, bound mightily to vex one or other."
Reith asked for the government view and was
advised not to allow the broadcast because, it was
suspected, that
would give the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, an excuse to commandeer the BBC.
Churchill had already lobbied Baldwin to that effect. Reith contacted the Archbishop to turn him down and explain that he feared if the talk went ahead, the government might take the company over.
Although
Churchill wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that
Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they
did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they
can trust us not to be really impartial".
Reith admitted to his staff that he regretted the lack of TUC and Labour voices on the airwaves. Many commentators have seen
Reith's stance during that period as
pivotal in
establishing the state broadcaster's enduring reputation for impartiality.
After the strike ended, the
BBC's Programme Correspondence Department analysed the reaction to the coverage, and reported that some 3,696 people complimented the BBC and 176 were critical.
John Gunther wrote that
Reith's "modernist citadel on Portland Place was
more important in the life of Britain than most government offices [and] rules the B.B.C. with a hand of granite". He "made the B.B.C. an expression of his
nonconformist conscience, and also what is probably the
finest broadcasting organization in the world"; Gunther predicted that he "is almost certain to have a big political job some day".
In
1938, John Reith and the
British government, specifically the
Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a
censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war. Due to the
BBC's advancements in shortwave radio technology, the corporation could
broadcast across the world during World War II. Within Europe, the
BBC European Service would
gather intelligence and information regarding the current events of the war in English.
Regional BBC workers, based on their regional geo-political climate, would then
further censor the material their broadcasts would cover.
Nothing was to be added outside the preordained news items. For example, the
BBC Polish Service was
heavily censored due to fears of jeopardising relations with the
Soviet Union.
Controversial topics, i.e. the contested Polish and Soviet border, the deportation of Polish citizens, the arrests of
Polish Home Army members and the
Katyn massacre, were
not included in Polish broadcasts.
American radio broadcasts were broadcast
across Europe on BBC channels. This material also passed through the
BBC's censorship office, which
surveilled and edited American coverage of British affairs. By
1940, across all BBC broadcasts,
music by composers from enemy nations was censored. In total, 99 German, 38 Austrian and 38 Italian composers were censored. The BBC argued that like the
Italian or
German languages, listeners would be irritated by the inclusion of enemy composers. Any potential broadcasters said to have
pacifist,
communist or
fascist ideologies were not allowed on the BBC's airwaves.
By
1938, Reith had become
discontented with his role as Director-General, asserting in his autobiography that the organisational structure of the BBC, which he had created, had left him with
insufficient work to do. He was invited by Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain to become
chairman of Imperial Airways, the
country's most important airline and one which had
fallen into public disfavour because of its
inefficiency.
He left Broadcasting House with no ceremony (at his request) but in tears. That evening, he attended a dinner party before driving out to
Droitwich to close down a transmitter personally. He signed the visitor's book "J.C.W. Reith, late BBC."
---
Ogilvie, Sir Frederick Wolff .. Sir Frederick Wolff Ogilvie FRSE (7 February 1893 – 10 June 1949) became the
2nd Director-General of the BBC in
1938, following
John Reith, who had been instrumental in the early development of the corporation. John
Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith,
KT,
GCVO,
GBE,
CB,
TD,
PC (20 July 1889 – 16 June 1971), was a
Scottish broadcasting executive who
established the
tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In
1922 he was employed by the BBC (
British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its
general manager; in
1923 he became its
managing director and in
1927 he was employed as the
Director-General of the
British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His
concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by trade, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger than life figure who was a pioneer in his field.
Ogilvie served as Director-General of the BBC
until
early 1942, but made
little impact at the BBC, although an exception was recruiting
Lindley M. Fraser to head the
BBC's German service, where Fraser developed a
large German audience throughout the war.
Historian
Asa Briggs described Ogilvie's period in office as "short, stormy and in some ways calamitous". R. C. Norman, who was chair of the BBC when Ogilvie was appointed, later described him as having every ability "except that of being able to manage a large organization, the one quality which was indispensable".
Ogilvie resigned in 1942, and received a
knighthood the same year. Ogilvie was succeeded at the BBC by
Cecil Graves and
Robert W. Foot.
Captain Sir Cecil George Graves KCMG MC (4 March 1892 – 2 January 1957) was
joint Director-General of the BBC with
Robert Foot from 26 January 1942 to 6 September 1943.
He joined the
BBC as an administrator in
1926, was
Assistant Director of Programmes from
1929 to 1932, then
Empire Service Director, 1932–1935,
Controller of Programmes, 1935–1938,
Deputy Director-General, 1938–1942, and in
1942 succeeded
Frederick Ogilvie (jointly with Robert Foot) as Director-General. Graves left the corporation in
1943 due to ill health, leaving Foot to be sole Director-General. Graves was also a member of the
Arts Council of Great Britain and the Broadcasting Council of Scotland (now known as
Audience Council Scotland).
Robert William Foot OBE MC (7 June 1889 – 2 April 1973) was
Director-General of the BBC, first jointly with
Cecil Graves from 26 January 1942 to 6 September 1943 and then solely until he resigned on 31 March 1944. Before joining the BBC, Foot was a general manager at
Gas, Light and Coke Company. He was not well-suited to the BBC role and left the post in 1944. After being succeeded by
William Haley, Foot became Chairman of the
Mining Association.
Sir William John Haley,
KCMG (24 May 1901 – 6 September 1987) was a
British newspaper editor and broadcasting
administrator. He served as
Director-General of the BBC from 1944 to 1952. While at the BBC he created the
BBC Third Programme, which was replaced by
BBC Radio 3 in 1970. He was made
Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in
1946. From 1952 to 1966 he was editor of
The Times.
