Media: Patricia Hodgson and the BBC chairmanship (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
PATRICIA Hodgson has not bothered applying for the BBC chairmanship. Nor, indeed, will she do so before Friday's deadline, claiming to lack the senior "chair level" experience demanded by the job ad. Still, you can safely assume that the former television regulator has every expectation of being "sounded out" for a job that she has told friends she so keenly wants. For a political operator as astute as Dame Patricia, even silence constitutes a carefully considered strategy.
Such reticence has not stopped her being widely tipped as a frontrunner for the £81,320, four-day a week job. A former BBC policy chief, considered a "soulmate" by John Birt in his divisive battle to reform the Corporation, she has already made her credentials known through a forthright appearance on Newsnight and a Financial Times article critical of the Dyke era's ratings obsession.
In her view, she wrote, BBC confidence would be restored by a chairman "free from any suspicions of cronyism, with the experience to know where changes are needed and the authority to deliver them".
And who, she neglected to add, could offer more experience than this 30-year BBC veteran? "She's always had an eye for the main chance," recalls a former BBC finance director who suspects a Hodgson chairmanship will be defined by Birtist "processes" rather than a flair for creative programmemaking. "She would always be very decent to you, and would keep in with all the right people politically, but you always ended up wondering how much you could trust her." Another former executive - like most, reluctant to be named - fears a return of the "armies of management consultants" she would impose on the Corporation. "She did love spending millions on useless projects that were dismantled once the Birt era ended," the executive recalls. "Maybe she was just trying to please Birt, but she wrote ridiculous memos in his management jargon."
UP against formidable competitors, Hodgson, 57, is the back-to-basics candidate. Although she would not be interviewed, the Evening Standard has established Hodgson's own priorities for the role - and "me too" popular programming for its own sake will have no place. Some of the Corporation's more ratings-driven departments are likely to face her early scrutiny. As she will tell the Westminster Media Forum today, the BBC needs to consider whether entertainment channels such a Radios 1 and 2 are sufficiently distinctive from commercial rivals to merit public funding.
Programmes such as Fame Academy will also need to justify their use of licence money. By returning to "real fundamentals" - forcing it to re-examine its historic mission to "inform, educate and entertain" - she believes Hutton may actually save the BBC.
Even her critics accept that Hodgson is a committed BBC insider. She joined in 1970 to make Open University history programmes, rising to become policy chief. But in this policy role, she was accused of a weakness for extravagant layers of management and expensive McKinsey consultants. She also made enemies for enthusiastically pushing through some unpopular Birt reforms, her jargon-laden memos offending some programme-makers.
Birt's memoirs are full of praise for this "extraordinarily smart operator", although she insists that she gave equal support to Greg Dyke.
"She's clearly ambitious," recalls a friend, who worked closely with her at the BBC and later at the Independent Television Commission. "But fundamentally Patricia is a huge BBC loyalist. It was her whole life, and leaving was extremely hard for her." Besides, having failed to get the job running Ofcom, Hodgson is available.
If interviewed by the selection panel, she will doubtless point to the two licence-fee settlements she secured, and for her role in pushing through what she calls the "digital properties" - meaning new radio and TV channels - in the face of strong internal opposition. She certainly has a reputation for determination. "The word people use mostly about her is formidable," one recalls. "She's tough and gets things done, and she has incredible political skills." But not enough to persuade Greg Dyke: under him, she left to become the ITC's chief executive. Here, she soon attracted criticism for her "News at When" negotiations with ITV executives. In an unworkable compromise, denounced by Jon Snow as "odious", News at Ten was required to go out at 10pm for three nights a week. She was also accused of being commercially naive in some advertising negotiations.
Hodgson, married to a teacher, was born in Ilford, Essex, and went to Brentford High School before reading history at Newnham College, Cambridge. She developed an interest in party politics: she stood as Conservative candidate in Islington South in 1974, and spent four years editing the Bow Group's journal. But she is not, she insists, "a party person", pointing out that her Tory links ended in 1981.
This may work to her advantage.
For despite all the Government's protestations that the appointment of a BBC chairman will be scrupulously non-partisan, there remain strong suspicions within Westminster that No 10 will have its fingermarks on the decision. "Downing Street will make the appointment, whatever 'due process' they put it through," says a former senior BBC executive who was close to a previous appointment. The Conservatives have already withdrawn from the selection process.
Margaret Spurr, an ex-governor, is equally sceptical. "I'm sure there will be interference, and I don't believe a word of what the Government is saying. Why, they've got John Birt advising the PM." And that, as some observers are pointing out, can hardly harm his former soulmate's prospects.
(Evening Standard, February 25 2004)
PATRICIA Hodgson has not bothered applying for the BBC chairmanship. Nor, indeed, will she do so before Friday's deadline, claiming to lack the senior "chair level" experience demanded by the job ad. Still, you can safely assume that the former television regulator has every expectation of being "sounded out" for a job that she has told friends she so keenly wants. For a political operator as astute as Dame Patricia, even silence constitutes a carefully considered strategy.
Such reticence has not stopped her being widely tipped as a frontrunner for the £81,320, four-day a week job. A former BBC policy chief, considered a "soulmate" by John Birt in his divisive battle to reform the Corporation, she has already made her credentials known through a forthright appearance on Newsnight and a Financial Times article critical of the Dyke era's ratings obsession.
In her view, she wrote, BBC confidence would be restored by a chairman "free from any suspicions of cronyism, with the experience to know where changes are needed and the authority to deliver them".
And who, she neglected to add, could offer more experience than this 30-year BBC veteran? "She's always had an eye for the main chance," recalls a former BBC finance director who suspects a Hodgson chairmanship will be defined by Birtist "processes" rather than a flair for creative programmemaking. "She would always be very decent to you, and would keep in with all the right people politically, but you always ended up wondering how much you could trust her." Another former executive - like most, reluctant to be named - fears a return of the "armies of management consultants" she would impose on the Corporation. "She did love spending millions on useless projects that were dismantled once the Birt era ended," the executive recalls. "Maybe she was just trying to please Birt, but she wrote ridiculous memos in his management jargon."
UP against formidable competitors, Hodgson, 57, is the back-to-basics candidate. Although she would not be interviewed, the Evening Standard has established Hodgson's own priorities for the role - and "me too" popular programming for its own sake will have no place. Some of the Corporation's more ratings-driven departments are likely to face her early scrutiny. As she will tell the Westminster Media Forum today, the BBC needs to consider whether entertainment channels such a Radios 1 and 2 are sufficiently distinctive from commercial rivals to merit public funding.
Programmes such as Fame Academy will also need to justify their use of licence money. By returning to "real fundamentals" - forcing it to re-examine its historic mission to "inform, educate and entertain" - she believes Hutton may actually save the BBC.
Even her critics accept that Hodgson is a committed BBC insider. She joined in 1970 to make Open University history programmes, rising to become policy chief. But in this policy role, she was accused of a weakness for extravagant layers of management and expensive McKinsey consultants. She also made enemies for enthusiastically pushing through some unpopular Birt reforms, her jargon-laden memos offending some programme-makers.
Birt's memoirs are full of praise for this "extraordinarily smart operator", although she insists that she gave equal support to Greg Dyke.
"She's clearly ambitious," recalls a friend, who worked closely with her at the BBC and later at the Independent Television Commission. "But fundamentally Patricia is a huge BBC loyalist. It was her whole life, and leaving was extremely hard for her." Besides, having failed to get the job running Ofcom, Hodgson is available.
If interviewed by the selection panel, she will doubtless point to the two licence-fee settlements she secured, and for her role in pushing through what she calls the "digital properties" - meaning new radio and TV channels - in the face of strong internal opposition. She certainly has a reputation for determination. "The word people use mostly about her is formidable," one recalls. "She's tough and gets things done, and she has incredible political skills." But not enough to persuade Greg Dyke: under him, she left to become the ITC's chief executive. Here, she soon attracted criticism for her "News at When" negotiations with ITV executives. In an unworkable compromise, denounced by Jon Snow as "odious", News at Ten was required to go out at 10pm for three nights a week. She was also accused of being commercially naive in some advertising negotiations.
Hodgson, married to a teacher, was born in Ilford, Essex, and went to Brentford High School before reading history at Newnham College, Cambridge. She developed an interest in party politics: she stood as Conservative candidate in Islington South in 1974, and spent four years editing the Bow Group's journal. But she is not, she insists, "a party person", pointing out that her Tory links ended in 1981.
This may work to her advantage.
For despite all the Government's protestations that the appointment of a BBC chairman will be scrupulously non-partisan, there remain strong suspicions within Westminster that No 10 will have its fingermarks on the decision. "Downing Street will make the appointment, whatever 'due process' they put it through," says a former senior BBC executive who was close to a previous appointment. The Conservatives have already withdrawn from the selection process.
Margaret Spurr, an ex-governor, is equally sceptical. "I'm sure there will be interference, and I don't believe a word of what the Government is saying. Why, they've got John Birt advising the PM." And that, as some observers are pointing out, can hardly harm his former soulmate's prospects.
(Evening Standard, February 25 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, February 25, 2004
<< Home