| John Birt |
Article Index for John |
Website Links For John |
Information AboutJohn Birt |
|
EARLY CAREER Birt was born in Liverpool to a Catholic father and a Protestant mother, he was raised Roman Catholic and was 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 ). AT THE BBC Birt was a source of immediate controversy following his appointment as BBC Director General in 1992 , when it was revealed he was being employed as a consultant, and therefore writing off numerous personal expenses against tax, including the secretarial services of his wife. While 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 brought out by Granada Television this meant that Birt lost out on several million pounds. In , 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 '' to "a certain blandness" {Link without Title} . Birt's complex internal market reforms of the BBC resulted in sections of the BBC were charging each other for internal services and even competing against each other when tendering contract submissions. Under the "producer choice" initiative producers were now obliged to use outside resources when cheaper to do so; in-house facilities were closed as a result because of the "creative accounting" methods used. Birt was little thought of by the organisations employees, and his reforms were partially dismantled by his successor Greg Dyke . 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 would not have secured its charter renewal in the 1990s , and Birt was responsible for a major modernisation of much BBC programming, not least the removal of Simon Bates , Dave Lee Travis and other veteran DJ s from Radio 1 , which was reformed as 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 ' 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. POST-BBC CAREER In , 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 at the beginning of July 2005 that Birt's office roof at No10 Downing Street had fallen in. No one was injured. 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 {Link without Title} . 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. {Link without Title} BIBLIOGRAPHY EXTERNAL LINKS
|