Beleaguered Chair of BBC had no choice but to go

So the worst kept secret in media is out. After a damning report into rule breaches around conflict of interest, BBC chairman Richard Sharp is out barely two years into his four-year term.

It seemed inevitable. Sharp’s foggy recollections over the exact details of his contact with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson put him in an awkward situation. The idea that the BBC’s chairman had sought to intervene in a serving Prime Minister’s financial affairs was barely a good look, but more than anything, it became an issue of credibility. How could one of the BBC’s top men continue to serve when the lines between his appointment and counsel of Johnson were so blurred?

Preaching the gospel of impartiality with a necessarily mute Sharp by his side was never going to end well

This ongoing saga has hamstrung the BBC for months and proved a particularly troublesome thorn in its side during the Gary Lineker saga, as one of the BBC’s top sports presenters was benched for comments he had made about the government’s immigration policies.

Whatever the merits of Tim Davie’s decision to temporarily sideline Lineker (and it is important to stress that he did have his backers and rationale), preaching the gospel of impartiality with a necessarily mute and hand-tied Sharp by his side was never going to end well. It was only really the sense of due process and Davie’s decision to cave in over Lineker which didn’t force Sharp’s hand back in March.

And so, the departing BBC chairman’s admission that his case was proving a “distraction” for the organisation is overdue to say the least. It has rendered the BBC’s leadership rudderless for months and limited Davie’s ability to properly move on from the Lineker debacle.

Many would like to see the next appointment to the chairship conducted independently of government 

According to the BBC’s Katie Razzall, it was only recently that Sharp had settled on resigning. Before that, he had believed he may be able to ride out this longest of disputes ever longer and come out of it still in post. The reality is that it has tarnished the BBC far too much.  

The question of his replacement provides a further challenge. There are many in Parliament and beyond who would like to see the next appointment to the chairship be conducted entirely independently of government. Whether this happens seems uncertain, but at the very least the next chair will have to be as far removed from party politics as possible. The same questions over impartiality at the top cannot continue to plague the BBC.

Few could have imagined that the BBC would come out of its centenary celebrations in 2022 into a new year which could go so disastrously from a PR perspective. Britain’s most trusted and longest running media organisation is in desperate need of a good story. It will hope that as it broadcasts two of its biggest events ever – the King’s Coronation and Eurovision – that its status as the unparalleled leader can reign supreme once again. But there are far muddier waters to navigate yet.