John Birt, Baron Birt
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John Birt, Baron Birt (born 10 December 1944), served as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from 1992 to 2000, having previously been deputy director-general since 1987.
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[edit] Early career
Birt was born in Liverpool to a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. He was raised Roman Catholic and educated at St Mary's College, Liverpool and at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he studied engineering and gained a third-class degree.
Between 1966 and 1971 he was a Producer at Granada Television, where he created the entertainment magazine programme Nice Time and worked on World in Action. In his most memorable programme for World in Action, in July 1967, he arranged for Mick Jagger, newly freed after drugs charges, to discuss his views with leading establishment figures including the editor of The Times and the Bishop of Woolwich. He became joint editor of the series in 1969, after which he worked at London Weekend Television (LWT), and having created Weekend World, he was the programmes founding editor. Subsequently, Birt was head of current affairs and then controller of Features and Current Affairs. By this time, Birt had formed a long-standing animosity with Michael Grade, then a colleague. In the mid-'seventies in a sabbatical away from LWT, he produced David Frost's interviews with Richard Nixon, returning to LWT as Director of Programmes from 1982; in particular during this period he was responsible for the revival in the career of Cilla Black, a life-long friend. Birt started working for the BBC in 1987 as deputy Director General (see [1]).
[edit] At the BBC
Birt was a source of immediate controversy following his appointment as BBC Director General in 1992, when it was revealed that he was being employed as a consultant and therefore writing off numerous personal expenses against tax, including the secretarial services of his wife. While this practice was acceptable in the private sector, most considered the role of Director General a Public Trust appointment, and under political pressure Birt negotiated to become a BBC employee. In the process Birt had to give up his shares in LWT that formed part of his final salary settlement. In 1994 when LWT was bought out by Granada Television this meant that Birt lost out on several million pounds.
In 1974, along with then Weekend World presenter Peter Jay, Birt had contributed three articles to The Times newspaper on television journalism. In their view, current affairs programming tended to contain a "bias against understanding": instead, they advocated the promotion of "a mission to explain." Birt held the post of Director of News and Current Affairs for a time during his spell as deputy Director General under Michael Checkland, but his influence in this field remained pervasive subsequently.
In practical pursuit of this thesis broadcast journalists were required by Birt to prepare their arguments before any filming was undertaken, rather than leave this to the assembly of the programme or package in the cutting room. This was controversial, since findings were now determined a priori and thus arguably led to the reflection of a narrower viewpoint. In the view of journalist Kate Adie this went against the "obligation to report"[2] or in the view of former Panorama presenter Fred Emery to "a certain blandness" [3].
Birt's complex internal market reforms of the BBC resulted in sections of the BBC charging each other for internal services and even competing against each other when tendering contract submissions. Under the "Producer Choice" initiative which he introduced, producers were now obliged to use outside resources when cheaper to do so; in-house facilities were closed or stood idle as a result because of the "creative accounting" methods used. Birt was not well liked by of by many of the BBC's employees, and his reforms were partially dismantled by his successors Greg Dyke and Mark Thompson. Dennis Potter, in particular, described Birt as a "croak-voiced Dalek" shortly before his death, and the allusion stuck for the rest of Birt's time at the BBC.
However, it has been convincingly argued that without those reforms and Birt's relatively Conservative-friendly persona [4], the BBC would not have secured its charter renewal in the 1990s. Birt was also responsible for a major modernisation of much BBC programming, not least the removal of Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis and other veteran DJs from Radio 1. This turned BBC-1 into a much more youth-oriented station (though the channel's popularity declined), and the demise of the Paul Daniels Magic Show and similar vintage variety formats on BBC1. Birt also invested heavily in Digital Broadcast resources for the BBC but this was criticised at being at the expense of the BBC's core programming with BBC grandees such as John Tusa launching attacks, claiming that, "you have to love an organisation in order to reform it."
In 1998, BBC programmes were prevented from mentioning the private life of the cabinet Minister Peter Mandelson, shortly after Mandelson had complained about Matthew Parris's inclusion of his name as a gay senior Minister. Mandelson and Birt had known each other when both had worked for London Weekend and there was press speculation that Birt had instigated the direction, although it had been issued by Anne Sloman.
Sir John was awarded the life peerage as Baron Birt, of Liverpool in the County of Merseyside in 1999, and took his seat in the House of Lords in March 2000.
[edit] Post-BBC career
In 2001 [5] Tony Blair appointed Birt as his personal advisor, for what was termed "Blue Skies thinking" [6]; it is thought his long standing friendship with Peter Mandelson had a role in his appointment.[7] His role in government has been controversial, since as a special advisor, rather than a civil servant, he is not formally obliged to face questions from House of Commons Select committees. In October 2002 an uproar was created when it emerged that the government had specifically asked him not to appear in front of the transport select committee, at a time when he was in charge of long-term transport strategy. Earlier that year, a paper of Birt's had proposed a second network of motorways operated as tolls to counter the problems of traffic congestion.[8] In parallel, he has subsequently become a part-time consultant with McKinsey & Company, which some see as a conflict of interest with his government involvement. In December 2005 he quit his role as advisor to Tony Blair to join private equity firm Terra Firma, "for personal reasons".
Since February 2004, Birt has been a member of the Board of Directors of PayPal.
The Financial Times reported [9] at the beginning of July 2005 that Birt's office ceiling at No10 Downing Street had fallen in. No one was injured.[10]
Returning to his earlier career on August 26, 2005, Birt delivered his second MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Partly a review of his professional life as a broadcaster, he also criticised the "tabloidisation" of intellectual concerns. More importantly, he argued that Channel Four should receive financial help, in order to preserve "public service broadcasting", which was taken as advocacy of the BBC sharing its licence fee with the Channel. He also mentioned that his long standing feud with Michael Grade had been resolved, but the speech as a whole was not admired by many figures in the industry [11].
In 2006, Lord Birt has joined the consulting firm Capgemini. Lord Birt will provide strategic support to the firm, with a focus on its efforts in the public sector and telecom, media and entertainment.[12]. He is currently working with Infinis (Infinis Limited, formerly the Waste-to-Energy division of Waste Recycling Group (WRG), was retained by Terra Firma when WRG was sold to Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas in September 2006. Infinis is the UK's largest independent generator of renewable power from landfill gas employing nearly 200 staff. The company operates 180 engines across 60 sites and has over 200MW of installed generating capacity. ) He was working as the Chairman of WRG, but has now agreed to become the Chaiman on Infinis
[edit] Private life
John Birt met his first wife, then Jane Lake, an American art student at Oxford in 1963 and married her in Washington, D.C. in 1965. In April 2005 it was announced that he intended to divorce his wife and marry Ms Eithne Wallis, formerly employed at the Home Office, when he is free to do so.[13]
[edit] Bibliography
- John Birt (2002). The Harder Path. Time Warner Books. ISBN 0-316-86019-0.
- Georgina Born (2004). Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-20562-9.
[edit] External links
- New Statesman interview with John Birt, June 21, 1996 by Ian Hargreaves
- Review of John Birt's The Harder Path by Peter Bazalgette in The Observer, October 27, 2002
- Announcement of his introduction at the House of Lords
| Media Offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Michael Checkland 1987–1992 |
Director-General of the BBC 1992–2000 |
Succeeded by: Greg Dyke 2000–2004 |
