Greg Dyke

Infobox_Person
name = Greg Dyke


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birth_date = birth date and age|1947|5|20|df=y
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occupation = Journalist and broadcaster
title = Chairman of Brentford Football Club
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website = [http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/executives/gregdyke.shtml BBC Profile]
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Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a journalist and broadcaster. He was Director-General of the BBC from January 2000 until 29 January 2004 when he resigned following heavy criticism of the BBC's news reporting process in the Hutton Inquiry.

Early years

Dyke was educated at Hayes Grammar School. He worked briefly as a reporter for the Hillingdon Mirror before attending the University of York as a mature student where he studied politics and was active in the Students Union. Contemporaries at York included the future journalists Linda Grant and Peter Hitchens, the latter then a prominent member of the International Socialists and friend. Dyke is now the University Chancellor at York.

He was an active supporter of the Labour Party and in 1977 he attempted to win a seat on the Greater London Council for Labour at Putney. In later years he was a financial donor to the party, before leaving Labour prior to the 2005 General Election, in which he supported the Liberal Democrats.

Working in television

After university, Dyke moved into jounalism and was also Public Relations spokesperson for the Wandsworth Council for Community Relations. He was married to a Probation Officer, Christine Taylor although the relationship broke down before he ventured into the world of Television. Some time later he formed a relationship with another Probation officer, Sue Howes with whom he has been ever since. The couple have two children. He worked first for London Weekend Television (LWT) before taking a job at TV-am in 1983. He was instrumental in reviving the breakfast show's fortunes by introducing Roland Rat, a hand puppet, to liven up the show. Following TV-am, Dyke became Director of Programmes for TVS, and later returned to LWT, making a fortune when Granada bought out the firm. Stints at Pearson PLC and five followed.

At the BBC

In 2000 he took over the helm of the BBC from John Birt. At the beginning of his tenure he famously promised to "cut the crap" at the Corporation. The "crap" he referred to was the complex internal market Birt had introduced at the BBC which, it is claimed, took employees away from making programmes and into managers. Dyke reversed this trend - he reduced administration costs from 24% of total income to 15%. Unusually for a recent D-G, he had a good rapport with his employees and was well liked by the majority of BBC staff.

Apart from restoring staff morale, Greg Dyke laid claim to two major achievements during his office. In 2002 he introduced the Freeview terrestrial digital transmission platform with six additional BBC channels, and persuaded Sky TV to join the consortium. Previously this was an ITV subscription service that had closed with major losses but can now be seen by more than half the population (mid-2007). After describing the Corporation in early 2001 as "hideously white", Dyke also changed the recruitment policy to make the staff more representative of the licence-paying British multi-cultural population.

BBC and Hutton Enquiry

Dyke resigned from the BBC on 29 January 2004 (as did Gavyn Davies & Andrew Gilligan), after the publication of the Hutton Report. Hutton described Dyke's approach to checking news stories as "defective"; when Alastair Campbell complained about the story, Dyke had immediately defended it without investigating whether there was any merit to the complaint.

In an email sent to all BBC staff just prior to his resignation Dyke wrote:

:"I accept that the BBC made errors of judgement and I've sadly come to the conclusion that it will be hard to draw a line under this whole affair while I am still here. We need closure. We need closure to protect the future of the BBC, not for you or me but for the benefit of everyone out there. It might sound pompous but I believe the BBC really matters."

It was subsequently established that Dyke had offered his resignation to the BBC's Board of Governors while hoping that they would reject it. However, he was only able to secure the support of about one-third of the Governors.

Some BBC staff felt that their organisation had been given too much blame in the David Kelly affair in the Hutton Report. Groups of staff stood outside Broadcasting House and other BBC centres across the country, protesting at the unfairness. Speaking on GMTV on 30 January Dyke himself questioned the conclusions of the report, saying "We were shocked it was so black and white [...] We knew mistakes had been made but we didn't believe they were only by us." He also claimed that Lord Hutton was "quite clearly wrong" on certain aspects of law relating to the case.

On 11th January 2007, the BBC published minutes of its post Hutton board meetings. It was revealed that Dyke had claimed he had been "mistreated and wanted to be reinstated". [http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/govsmins_feb04.pdf]

After the Hutton Enquiry

On 28 November 2003 Greg Dyke was formally appointed by the University of York as its new Chancellor, replacing Dame Janet Baker, who had served in the post since November 1991. There was some controversy regarding his appointment in the midst of the Iraq Dossier scandal. He officially took the post in August 2004. In this role, he is the honorific and ceremonial head of the University, as well as heading the University Development Board. He has also made a personal grant to the new Department of Theatre, Film and Television, to found the Greg Dyke Chair in Film and Television. However, this post will not be filled until the construction of new, specially-designed facilities, intended to open in 2008.

On 6 February 2004 Dyke announced that he had signed a six-figure book contract with HarperCollins. The book ("Inside Story"), subsequently published in September 2004, goes into detail about Dyke's opinion on the relationship between the BBC and the British government, and of the Dr David Kelly affair and Hutton Inquiry. It has had a poor critical reception. At the Cheltenham Literary Festival in October 2004, Dyke accused the government of "trying to kill" Andrew Gilligan.

There are similarities between the enforced resignation of Alasdair Milne over Zircon a few months before the 1987 election and Dyke's resignation over the reporting of military intelligence issues the year before the 2005 election, though Dyke took responsibility for flaws in the control of live broadcasting whereas Milne was 'sacked' for yet to be broadcast investigative research. The departure of Greg Dyke also has echoes of the removal of Hugh Greene in 1969, who fell from the favour of Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (against a background of the Vietnam War), in part due to Greene's defence of robust reporting, as well as his support for provocative and controversial material.

In July 2004 Dyke was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Sunderland, Middlesex University and in 2006 from The University of Bedfordshire. In his acceptance speech for the latter, he attacked the government over its stance on the Iraq war heavily, and maintained that the Andrew Gilligan story was essentially true, the story government dossier was sexed up and that the government staged a "witch hunt" to deflect from the real issues surrounding the Iraq war.

On 2 May 2005 the former Labour supporter Dyke went public at a Liberal Democrat press conference and said that "Democracy was under threat if Labour was elected for a third term".

He was appointed Chair of the British Film Institute on February 15, 2008, succeeding Anthony Minghella.

Brentford Football Club

Dyke is a fan of Brentford Football Club and was appointed as non-executive Chairman of the club on 20 January 2006, following the takeover by the Supporters Trust, [http://www.beesunited.org.uk Bees United] .

A candidate for London Mayor?

There has been speculation that Dyke was interested in standing against Ken Livingstone in the London Mayoral election in 2008 as an Independent, conditional on no opposition from either Liberal Democrat or Conservative candidates. The Liberal Democrats were not prepared to consider the arrangement. The story was quashed in an interview with Dyke on Sky News. [Ben Dowell and Owen Gibson [http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2060306,00.html "How the 'Greg Dyke for London mayor' story snowballed",] "The Guardian" website, 18 April 2007. Retrieved on 18 April 2007.]

References

External links

*
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3441181.stm BBC apologises as Dyke quits] from the BBC News
* [http://ystv.york.ac.uk/watch/getvideo.php?vid=144&mode=save Video of Installation of Greg Dyke as Chancellor of the University of York]
* [http://ystv.york.ac.uk/watch/getvideo.php?vid=9&mode=save Video of York Student Television 2005 Greg Dyke Interview]
* [http://www.bafta.org/library/webcasts/the-bafta-debate-the-reality-of-british-tv,253,BA.html Greg Dyke debates Reality Television] BAFTA Webcast, January 2008