Greg Dyke

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Break into television: LWT and TV-AM

After university, Dyke followed his first wife to Newcastle. He had become disillusioned with newspaper journalism, and tried for a job as a junior reporter at BBC Radio Teesside. He was unsuccessful, apparently because the interviewers felt no-one would understand his accent. Dyke instead found work covering rural affairs for the Newcastle Journal. He moved back to London with Christine in 1974 to become campaign officer for the Wandsworth Community Relations Council. He hated the job and left to campaign to be elected GLC Councillor for Putney. Again he was unsuccessful.

Dyke was given assistance getting a job at London Weekend Television (LWT) by fellow ex-Newcastle journalist Nicholas Evans, who was at the time working on Weekend World. Dyke got a junior position on LWT's local politics programme, in the current affairs department. His bosses there were John Birt and Peter Jay. He attracted attention for trying to give the programmes he worked on a more populist edge. This led to him being given the chance to launch a new early evening current affairs topical news programme. This became The Six O'Clock Show, fronted by Michael Aspel, with co-hosts Danny Baker and Janet Street-Porter. The show is seen by many as the first example of British tabloid TV.

After the success of The Six O' Clock Show, Dyke was brought in by Jonathan Aitken to become programme director at ailing station TV-am in April 1983. The station was doing very badly in the ratings compared to the BBC's popular Breakfast Time magazine style programme. He was instrumental in reviving the breakfast show's fortunes by introducing a new schedule based around popular features including bingo, celebrity gossip and horoscopes.

Dyke left TV-am, in May 1984 after Bruce Gyngell was brought in to enhance and improve the company to allow it to be financially viable. Ten days later, Michael Moor, the TV-am general manager, also left the station. In August 1984, Dyke became director of programmes at Television South (TVS).

In April 1987, Dyke moved from TVS to LWT again to be director of programmes, replacing John Birt, having originally worked at LWT in 1978. At the same time, he helped LWT re-sectioning the company in a bid to cut costs and overhaul the working practices within the company ahead of a new franchise period, which it won. Dyke was responsible for cancelling ITV's coverage of professional wrestling in 1988. In 1992 he was appointed the chairman of the ITV Council, and LWT chief executive. In February 1993 he was appointed chairman of the GMTV board and tasked with overhauling the station format, which included "more popular journalism". His role was primarily to bring new and imaginative ideas to the station without taking on full day-to-day running. In 1994, he made a fortune when Granada bought out LWT.

At the BBC

In 2000, Dyke took over from John Birt as director-general of the BBC. He was appointed despite Conservative protests that he had donated £50,000 to the Labour Party and was a 'crony'. 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 was argued, turned 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 director-general, he had a good rapport with his employees and was popular with the majority of BBC staff, his management style being seen as more open and risk-taking than Birt's.

Jonathan Gifford, who worked for BBC Magazines in BBC Worldwide during the management of Birt and Dyke, observed "Dyke came across well. He was direct, sensible and approachable. His vision for the BBC was inspirational." Martin Montague, a producer on digital radio station BBC7 said "I know that people in local radio think he walks on water because of all that he's put into that."

Apart from restoring staff morale, 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 by mid-2007 it could be seen by more than half the population. After leaving the BBC, he said that he always realised that the introduction of Freeview helped to prevent a subscription funding model for the BBC gain traction, because it is impossible for broadcasters to switch off the signal to individual Freeview boxes.

Dyke controversially described the corporation in early 2001 as "hideously white", based on statistics that showed the organisation's management structure was 98% white. Dyke said that "The figures we have at the moment suggest that quite a lot of people from different ethnic backgrounds that we do attract to the BBC leave. Maybe they don't feel at home, maybe they don't feel welcome." Dyke set a target that by 2003, 10% of the BBC's UK workforce and 4% of management would be from ethnic minority backgrounds. In September 2004, Dyke received an award for his remarks from Glasgow-based organisation Empower Scotland, which fights against workplace racism.

Dyke attracted criticism when he "forgot" to sell an equity stake in Granada Television, which presented a conflict of interest in his new position. He also caused controversy when he lost the rights to Premier League football to ITV, then accused the league of fixing the auction. Others were worried that the openness and high risk strategies of his management style could backfire on the corporation. An ITV executive was quoted as saying, "By being too radical and playing fast and loose with the public service remit, the BBC is inviting external regulation – and it deserves it."

In 2009, Dyke said the BBC was part of a "Westminster conspiracy" preventing the "radical changes" needed to UK democracy and that the separation between the "political class", including the BBC, and the public had never been greater. He said he had tried to raise the problem during his time in charge of the BBC but discussion had been blocked by a combination of the "politicos on the board of governors" of the BBC, the Labour cabinet and the political journalists at the BBC. He believed that these groups resist change as it is not in their interests.

Hutton Report and firing by the BBC

Dyke resigned from the BBC on 29 January 2004 along with Gavyn Davies and Andrew Gilligan, after the publication of the Hutton Report into the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly. 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 departure 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. Dyke withdrew his resignation offer and was then sacked by the board.

Some BBC staff felt that too much blame had been placed on their organisation in the wake of the David Kelly affair in the Hutton Report, and that the government was interfering in the BBC. Tim Gospill, spokesman for the National Union of Journalists said "Being independent doesn't just mean not having the government telling you what to do. It means you can criticise the government as well. I'm not at all sure the government understands that." Groups of staff staged walk outs from Broadcasting House and other BBC offices in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and Derry, in protest at Dyke's resignation. In addition, on 31 January 2004, BBC staff paid for a full-page advert in The Daily Telegraph to express their "dismay" over Dyke's departure. The fundraisers hoped to raise £10,000, a lot less than the market rate for a full-page advert in a broadsheet newspaper. Reportedly they raised less than this amount, but were offered a deal by the Telegraph's advertising department which allowed the advert to be printed. It was signed by around 4,000 BBC employees; 10,000 (around a third of total BBC staff at the time) submitted their names for publication, but there was not sufficient space to include them all.

The statement in the advertisement read:

Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent and rigorous BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for the truth. We are resolute that the BBC should not step back from its determination to investigate the facts in pursuit of the truth.

Through his passion and integrity Greg inspired us to make programmes of the highest quality and creativity.

We are dismayed by Greg's departure, but we are determined to maintain his achievements and his vision for an independent organisation that serves the public above all else.

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 said Lord Hutton was "quite clearly wrong" on certain aspects of law relating to the case.

On 11 January 2007, the BBC published minutes of its post-Hutton board meetings. It was revealed that Dyke had said he had been "mistreated and want[ed] to be reinstated".

Football administration

Dyke has been a director of both Manchester United and Brentford football clubs, and was chairman of the FA from 2013 to 2016. He has said that he supported both clubs since he was a child, although his older brothers supported Tottenham. He became a fan of Brentford when his brother played for the club as a junior. Manager Bill Dodgin Sr. tried to sign his brother, but their father would not agree to him committing to what he saw as a badly paid and insecure career.

From 1997 to 1999, Dyke served as a non-executive director of Manchester United, and was the sole board member to oppose a takeover bid from BSkyB, which was subsequently rejected by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. When he became director-general of the BBC he admitted a "potential conflict of interest" between his new post and his non-executive directorship at Manchester United plc. He resigned his position to avoid controversy. In a speech at the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year Awards, he said "it was seen as a conflict of interest to both buy and sell football rights. My kids have never forgiven me for joining the BBC because of that."

Dyke was the non-executive chairman of Brentford from 20 January 2006 until July 2013. He was appointed as part of the club takeover by Bees United, the Brentford Supporters Trust.

At Brentford, Dyke's focus was on budget constraints for the small club and the necessity to generate money from televised matches and other means. Under Dyke the club's performance was initially unsteady, with a few highlights but the club experiencing its worst run since the 1970s. On 28 January 2006, they beat Premier League strugglers Sunderland 2–1 in the fourth round of the FA Cup, but lost 3–1 to another Premier League club Charlton Athletic (of which former BBC chairman Michael Grade was non-executive director) in the fifth round.

The club finished third in the league that year and lost to Swansea City in the play-off semi-final. These initial slight successes preceded a spell of misfortune which saw Brentford lose 16 matches in a row and be relegated to Football League Two in 2007. Turnover of managers was fast, with Allen, Leroy Rosenior, Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Reeves, Barry Quin and Terry Butcher in the space of two years, before Butcher's assistant Andy Scott got the team back on track, winning the League Two title on 25 April 2009. Scott could not continue the success and after a series of poor results he was sacked in February 2011. Dyke remained upbeat:

"We are slightly disappointed with this season, as we increased the playing budget. The highlight was getting to Wembley but we froze a little in the final. But we have a good team, no matter who the manager is. We are spending enough money and we should be getting to the play-offs."

Dyke announced plans in 2010 for the club to move to a new ground, selling off the Griffin Park ground for residential housing to raise money. Dyke said: "Our aim is to move into a new stadium in Lionel Road and to move there as a club free of debt."

Dyke replaced David Bernstein as chairman of The Football Association in July 2013 after relinquishing his role as Brentford chairman and receiving approval from the FA council. In September, Dyke warned of an "alarming" lack of homegrown talent in English football, with fewer and fewer homegrown players in the top flight, and set England the target of at least reaching the semi-finals of UEFA Euro 2020 and then winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

After Sepp Blatter's sudden departure from FIFA on 2 June 2015, when Blatter said he was resigning for honorable reasons and to allow FIFA to move on, Dyke said: "I don't believe a word of this. If he believes that, why not step down last week when we asked him to? He was cock-a-hoop when he won the election and terribly arrogant. Clearly there is a smoking gun. This is nothing to do with Mr Blatter being honorable; he hasn't been honorable for years".

Dyke left the FA in 2016, deciding not to stand for re-election, as he struggled to reform the organisation. He was succeeded as chairman by Greg Clarke.

Greg Dyke

Greg Dyke

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Early life and education

Career

Break into television: LWT and TV-AM

Pearson and Channel 5

At the BBC

Hutton Report and firing by the BBC

After the Hutton Inquiry

Football administration

Comments on News of the World phone hacking scandal

Political views

Personal life

Honours

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