On Wednesday this week I met Elan Closs Stephens, the BBC trustee leading the Review into Radio 4, 4Extra and 5 Live. She is a former Chair of the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority and Emeritus Professor of Communications and Creative Industries at Aberystwyth University.
She is charming, well informed and sharp as a tack.
She also seems to like broadcasting and broadcasters.
What a contrast with some of the BBC Governors of the past, particularly those in the 1980s who seemed to have been chosen because of their ignorance of broadcasting, dislike of the Corporation, and the prejudices they shared with the prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, about the “Marxist pinkos” in news and current affairs.
By the middle of that decade there was almost open warfare between the BBC Board of Governors and the Board of Management .
Then, early in 1987, the new Chairman, Duke Hussey, summoned the DG, Alasdair Milne, into his office and effectively fired him saying that his pension would be in danger if Milne did not sign the letter of resignation in front of him. Milne gave in, signed, was driven away immediately from Television Centre, and never had another proper job.
It was brutal, if not entirely undeserved and put an end to any debate about who really was in charge of the BBC - the Management or the Governors
It was now the Government’s appointees, not the professional managers.
Constitutionally this has always been the case but in the past many Governors were happy to accept invitations to the BBC boxes at Wimbledon and Ascot and not ask too many questions. At the same time BBC Management tried to ensure that they knew little and interfered even less.
All this ended in 1987.
Since then managers have realised that they need to keep those who oversee them better informed and today the Trustees are firmly in charge and they have a significant “private office” to ensure they can properly scrutinise their management.
They can’t, or shouldn’t, manage the Corporation but they can govern it, and these Reviews are one of the ways in which they control the broad strategy.
It was Michael Grade who came up with the idea of giving each BBC network a ‘service licence’, which stated clearly what was expected of it and against which it could be measured.
He put the idea, cooked up with his long time personal think tank, Peter Ibbotson, in his application to be Chair of the BBC Governors which was in the process of being transformed into the Trust.
Elan Closs Stephen, the BBC Trust member for Wales and the lead trustee on this latest review insists that the input of those who listen to the networks is vital.
But if you speak will they listen?
You can hear my interview with the Trustee and the rest of the programme here.
In two weeks’ time I will be talking to the Controller of Radio 4 and assisting listeners in questioning them directly, so do get in touch if you want to take part or give me ammunition to fire.
And if you want to contribute to the Trust review , the details of how to do so are on the Trust website.
Roger Bolton
Roger Bolton is the presenter of
