The BBC has been eulogising its veteran broadcaster Sir Charles Wheeler, who died on Friday at 85. Mark Thompson, the director-general, described him as “utterly irreplaceable”. Some of Thompson’s predecessors would have replaced Wheeler all too quickly if they could, however. For he never hid his scorn for the Beeb’s panjandrums, blaming the organisation’s many problems on their contempt for their staff and audience. In 1989, he joined a picket line of strikers, accusing Michael Checkland, the then director-general, and John Birt, his deputy, of “giving themselves a 30% pay rise while arguing they can’t afford comparable increases for their staff . . . half a dozen previous DGs must be turning in their graves”. His BBC masters were not his only target. For half a century Wheeler made no effort to conceal how unimpressed he...
[read full story]
Your Web Site
