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Tim Davie has insisted he is still the right person to lead the BBC, after a succession of issues that has seen the culture secretary accuse him of overseeing a “series of catastrophic failures”.
The BBC’s director general has been under the most intense pressure of his five-year tenure after incidents including the livestreaming of Bob Vylan’s performance at the Glastonbury festival, as well as a Gaza documentary that breached the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines.
This week, the BBC also admitted opportunities were missed to deal with the behaviour of Gregg Wallace, after an independent report substantiated 45 allegations made against the former MasterChef presenter, including claims of inappropriate sexual language and one incident of unwelcome physical contact.
It has led to criticism from the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, who suggested the corporation was suffering from a failure in leadership.
However, Davie insisted there had been consequences for staff responsible for the Glastonbury broadcast and a Gaza documentary that failed to disclose its child narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Speaking at the launch of the BBC’s annual report, Davie said he had already taken action to improve the culture at the BBC after previous high-profile scandals such as the departure of disgraced presenter Huw Edwards – including the dismissal of staff.
In a defence of his performance, Davie said the controversy around Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone had been the most challenging he had dealt with during his tenure. However, he said he was the right person to lead the BBC as it faced an onslaught of competition from streamers and a continued decline in the number of households paying the licence fee.
“I simply think I’m in a place where I can work to improve dramatically the BBC and lead it in the right way,” he said. “We will make mistakes, but I think as a leadership, and myself, I’ve been very clear – and I think we have been decisive.
“When you go through tough times, one of the things that I focus on as a leader is there has never been a more important time for public service broadcasting. Gaza has been the most challenging editorial issue I’ve had to deal with. But the importance of fair, balanced reporting, the need for high-quality homegrown programming in the face of massive pressure, has never, ever been greater.
“I believe my leadership and the team I’ve assembled can really help the BBC thrive in that environment.”
Davie said the BBC had “already seen dismissals” as a result of an action plan drawn up after a series of scandals around conduct, including the Edwards scandal. The former presenter ultimately pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Neither Davie, nor Samir Shah, the chair of the BBC, would name any individuals who had lost their jobs.
Davie said action was also being taken against senior figures involved in the Gaza failing and the live streaming of Bob Vylan at Glastonbury. Pascal Robinson-Foster, who goes by the name Bobby Vylan as part of the duo, was shown leading chants of “death, death to the IDF”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Davie faces another difficult decision over the future of the latest series of MasterChef, which has already been delivered to the BBC and in which Wallace features almost throughout. The decision has become even more difficult after the show’s other presenter, John Torode, announced that he was the subject of a substantiated allegation of using racist language. He denies the incident happened.
Davie said MasterChef’s producer, Banijay, had to “follow up” on the allegation and report back to the BBC. He said he had made no decision over the series, but was concerned about the effort put in by the amateur chefs involved.
“One of my overwhelming concerns is that we’ve got all the amateur chefs that gave their heart and soul to this programme,” he said. “We have to reflect on that, talk to them – and I’m sure Banijay are doing that – consult them, think about the audience, and then make a call. That’s what we’re going through now.”
He said there was a future for the show. “A great programme that’s well loved by audiences is much bigger than individuals,” he said.
The BBC’s annual report highlighted the strengths and serious challenges the BBC faces as streaming and YouTube continue to split audiences. The BBC is still managing to reach 94% of UK adults every month, while its digital platform iPlayer was the UK’s fastest-growing long-form on-demand service last year.
However, the number of households paying the BBC licence fee fell for the seventh consecutive year, down 300,000, the report stated.
