Careful selection at the top

BBC corporate headquarters: Broadcasting House

Appointing a new director general is a job for the 12 members of the BBC's board of governors.

Indeed, it is their most important task, and when carrying it out every five years or so they jealously guard their independence. The UK Government has no say, nor does parliament, the BBC's staff or anyone else (however much they might wish to).

Chairman Sir Christopher Bland is a powerful character, but the current board is one of the strongest for years. They are unlikely to have accepted unquestionably any candidate just because he had Sir Christopher's backing.

Nor are they likely to have taken kindly to lobbying by hopefuls - although, as the former vice chairman Lord Barnett observed, they do read the papers, which is one reason why "friends" (and enemies) of several candidates gave unattributable briefings to journalists over recent months.

A fair process

The BBC said that is wanted the new director general's appointment to be fair, open, rigorous and objective, in contrast to the process which produced Sir John Birt.

When elected in 1991, he was the sole candidate and was appointed without formal advertisement after a governors' dinner. This time, the formal procedure began in mid-March with an advertisement for the post. It invited applicants "committed to the BBC's public services purposes" with a track record of "visionary leadership in a large, complex organisation".

Candidates, the advertisement said, had to be experienced in attracting and retaining creative people, understand the impact of changing technology in broadcasting and know about the media industry.

And they had to have not only strong strategic, managerial and financial skills but also the "personal resilience" needed for one of the country's highest-profile and most controversial public sector jobs.

Challenges for the future

For the first time a firm of headhunters, Heidrick & Struggles, undertook the preliminary interviews - and contacted those potential candidates too self-effacing (or too proud) not to have responded to the advertisement.

The shortlisted candidates were interviewed in the middle of May by a sub-committee of three or four BBC governors. They were all asked for a short position paper (no more than three pages of A4) outlining their view on the challenges facing the BBC and how they would tackle them, which they had to write in an hour.

No more than three names were then forwarded by the sub-committee to a meeting of the Board of Governors on 27 May. Those on the final short shortlist will have been interviewed by the full board of governors, before they then made their final choice.