karlpejera: George Entwistle appointed BBC director general

Former Newsnight editor and current controller of BBC Vision has pledged to return the broadcaster to its creative roots

Former Newsnight editor George Entwistle has been appointed the next director general of the BBC, pledging to return the broadcaster to its creative roots and cut back further on bureaucracy.

Entwistle gained the most powerful role in British broadcasting just days before his 50th birthday on Sunday and was immediately charged by the man who appointed him, BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten, to make the BBC "10 or 20% better".

Currently the controller of BBC Vision overseeing all of the corporation's TV channels and programme-making departments, Entwistle pipped his colleague, BBC chief operating officer Caroline Thomson, to the top job. He will oversee an organisation with more than 22,000 employees and total BBC revenues of nearly �5bn.

Thomson, who would have been the first female director general in the BBC's 90-year history, said she was "very disappointed" and looks likely to leave the corporation after Entwistle succeeds Mark Thompson in September. Ed Richards, chief executive of media regulator Ofcom, was also shortlisted.

The appointment caps a remarkable rise for Entwistle who joined the BBC 23 years ago as a news trainee. He went on to work for Panorama and Tomorrow's World, and edited Newsnight before switching to various senior roles in the upper echelons of the corporation including controller of knowledge commissioning and acting controller of BBC4.

A low-profile figure who will have to grow accustomed to the spotlight, Entwistle did his best to avoid it on Wednesday by declining to answer journalists' questions as he was formally unveiled by Patten outside the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in central London.

A frontrunner for the role since Thompson announced in March he would step down after the Olympics, Entwistle's candidature appeared briefly beset by criticism of the BBC's diamond jubilee coverage in which he was closely involved.

Nearly 5,000 viewers complained about the BBC's coverage of the jubilee flotilla, which included elementary mistakes by some of its presenters and Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton discussing a royal-themed sick bag.

But the BBC Trust was said to have been impressed with Entwistle's presentation and handling of the questions asked of him, despite the jubilee furore which drew criticism from MPs and some of the corporation's own presenters.

Sources said his pitch to Patten and his fellow trustees centred on returning the BBC to a creative organisation and cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy.

Entwistle said he was "privileged to be leading the greatest broadcasting organisation in the world" and said his friend and predecessor Thompson would be a "tough act to follow".

He added: "I'm delighted that the chairman and trustees have decided I'm the right person for the job, and I'm very excited about all that lies ahead. I love the BBC and it's a privilege to be asked to lead it into the next stage of its creative life."

Patten said the challenge for the new director general was to continue to improve the BBC's programmes at a time of financial restraint ? the BBC's licence fee was frozen in 2010 ? and retain the support of the viewing and listening public.

"The BBC can be and should be 10 or 20% better than it is," said Patten.

Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman described Entwistle as "clever, erudite, a man, critically, who reads books, a man with a sense of humour and a great degree of irreverence, not least about the BBC. I like him."

Paxman said Entwistle was "put through the wringer" during the David Kelly affair after the programme's science editor Susan Watts told him that the weapons inspector was a source of her reports on Iraq's military capabilities.

"The BBC went through one of its characteristic spasms," Paxman told Radio 4's PM. "When they were attempting to discover who had said what to whom they lent on him extremely hard. They put him under extreme pressure which he withstood."

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said Entwistle had to retain the corporation's "gold standard", adding: "There couldn't be someone with more experience of how the BBC works, with more diverse experience," he added. "He is someone who is hugely respected both inside and outside the organisation."

Critics have suggested Entwistle is "untried" at the highest level after just 15 months in the BBC Vision role. Asked about perceived lack of commercial experience, the trust chairman described him as a greatly respected cultural leader who was experienced in exploiting the BBC's programmes around the world.

Patten said he was the unanimous choice of the BBC Trust, which also interviewed a fourth, unidentified outside candidate for the role.

Criticism of senior BBC executive pay means Entwistle's salary of �450,000 is less than the �617,000 earned up by his predecessor. Patten defended Entwistle's pay packet, saying it was considerably less than some commercial television executives earned.

"[It is a] reasonable salary for a public service job," he said. "More than reasonable."

His appointment met with the approval of Thompson, who singled him out as his preferred candidate and described him as an "outstanding leader with an intuitive understanding of public sector broadcasting".

A father-of-two who lives in south London, Entwistle grew up in Yorkshire and attended the independent Silcoates School in Wakefield before studying philosophy and politics at Durham University.

Colleagues describe him as a "safe pair of hands" and a "loyal BBC soldier". Erudite and enthusiastic, he is said to have a "huge amount of energy, oodles of enthusiasm and is very hands-on".

BBC staffers not already familiar with their new boss may also like to know that he is a stickler for punctuality. "He is quite different from a lot of BBC managers, in that he deals with meetings very well and they never over-run," said one colleague. "He never rambles."

Entwistle has spent his entire career at the BBC apart from a stint at Michael Heseltine's Haymarket magazines in the 1980s, where he worked on hi-fi and camera magazines and reviewed classical CDs.

Asked about the missed opportunity to appoint the first female director general, Lord Patten told the BBC: "While we had some very good women who applied, we chose the best candidate and I think that's what the women on our shortlist would have wanted us to do."

In a statement, Thomson said: "Of course I am very disappointed not to have been appointed director general. It would have been a wonderful honour to lead such a brilliant organisation. But if it couldn't have been me, then George is absolutely the right choice."

The decision not to appoint Ed Richards could prove a challenge for him in his role as the head of Ofcom, which has some regulatory powers over the BBC. He will now have to be seen to be completely impartial over anything involving the BBC.

Entwistle's elevation creates another vacancy at the top of the corporation, with BBC1 controller Danny Cohen, another former Newsnight editor Peter Barron, who quit to join Google and Entwistle's number two Emma Swain, among the contenders to succeed him as head of BBC Vision.

What's in George Entwistle's in-tray

? Complete the �700m round of cost-cutting begun by Mark Thompson's Delivering Quality First review

? Build bridges with his BBC colleagues who didn't get the top job ? and appoint his successor as director of BBC Vision

? Hold onto the corporation's big-name presenters and what's left of the BBC's sports portfolio in the face of intense competition from commercial rivals

? Mollify trade unions who called on him to reverse the latest cuts and prepare to deal with further budget shrinkage in the future

? Prove that the near �1bn the BBC will spend on its new BBC North HQ in Salford is money well spent

? Renew the BBC's entertainment offerings by finding successors to long-running shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and following the mixed performance of The Voice

? Develop a technology strategy, after the runaway success of the iPlayer, for the mobile era

? Pave the way for a new charter and licence fee settlement in the run-up to 2017

John Plunkett

Tara Conlan