George Entwistle

George Edward Entwistle (born 8 July 1962) is a former broadcasting executive, who was Director-General of the BBC during 2012, succeeding Mark Thompson. After a career in magazine journalism, he joined BBC Television in 1989, becoming a producer with a primary focus on factual and political programmes. He rose to become the director of BBC Vision, and became the Director-General of the BBC on 17 September 2012.

Entwistle resigned as Director-General on 10 November 2012, following investigations into BBC management and conduct following revelations the broadcaster had known about sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and controversy over a Newsnight report which falsely implicated Lord McAlpine in the North Wales child abuse scandal. His resignation after just 54 days in the role made him the shortest-serving Director-General in the history of the BBC.

Early life Entwistle was born on 8 July 1962, the son of Philip and Wendy Entwistle. He was educated at Silcoates School, an independent school for boys (now co-educational), in the village of Wrenthorpe, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire. He then went on to study at the University of Durham (University College) in the city of Durham in north-east England, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Philosophy and Politics, in 1983.

Career Publishing From 1984 to 1989, Entwistle worked as a writer and editor at Haymarket Magazines.

Broadcasting In 1989, Entwistle joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a broadcast journalism trainee. From May to December 2007, he was the Acting Controller of BBC Four in place of Janice Hadlow. In January 2008, he became the Controller of Knowledge Commissioning. He was responsible for commissioning 1600 hours of TV programmes across BBC One, Two, Three and Four each year, and was in overall control of the BBC's online factual and learning content. On 27 April 2011, he was appointed Director of BBC Vision. In the role he was responsible for the television channels BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC One HD and BBC HD, and the feature film-making arm of the BBC, BBC Films.

Director-General of the BBC On 4 July 2012, the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, announced that Entwistle had been appointed to succeed Mark Thompson as Director-General of the BBC. He took up the post on 17 September 2012. Entwistle described himself as the "right person for the job".

Following Entwistle's departure Greg Dyke, a previous Director-General who had himself been persuaded to resign under controversial circumstances, offered his insights on the Entwistle affair:

"...you have to go back six years to when Tessa Jowell .... lumbered the BBC with a new governance system that everyone told her wouldn’t work." Only a matter of weeks into Entwistle's tenure as Director-General, the BBC became embroiled in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal. On 23 October 2012, Entwistle faced the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee over questions the BBC had failed to broadcast a Newsnight investigation into historic sexual abuse by Savile after the presenter's death in 2011. Entwistle was accused by Lisa O'Carroll of The Guardian of giving a "less than authoritative performance, showing a lack of curiosity about Newsnight's investigation" and "leaving the impression of a director general not entirely in command of his operation."

Entwistle resigned as BBC Director-General on 10 November 2012, following controversy over a Newsnight report which indirectly and incorrectly implicated Lord McAlpine in the North Wales child abuse scandal. A particularly devastating interview with Entwistle by John Humphrys on that morning's BBC Radio 4 Today programme was possibly the immediate factor in his resignation, as it appeared from the interview that he had no intention of resigning when Humphrys put the issue to him. Entwistle said that Newsnight had been wrong to broadcast the report, and that he had been aware of it only after it had been broadcast. He commented "In the light of the unacceptable journalistic standards of the Newsnight film broadcast on Friday 2 November, I have decided that the honourable thing to do is to step down from the post of director general."

Entwistle was publicly supported by Jeremy Paxman, Michael Crick, John Ware, Stephen Fry and Ben Bradshaw.

Personal life In 1992, he married Jane Porter. They have a son and daughter. He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford in 2022 with a DPhil in History.