“In my many years of making editorial calls across the BBC, this is as tough as it gets.” Those were the words of Tim Davie when he addressed the BBC’s employees on June 11th.The director general has endured a brutal week after the UK national broadcaster live-streamed scenes of Glastonbury act Bob Vylan.Just one of these controversies would be enough to test the resolve of any BBC director general. Three in quick succession has led to searching questions about whether Davie has got a handle on the Gaza-related issues roiling his workforce and audiences. An exasperated Lisa Nandy, the UK minister responsible for the BBC, put it like this: “When you have one editorial failure, it’s something that must be gripped. When you have several, it becomes a problem of leadership.”The culture secretary’s broadside was unusual and inevitably led to questions over whether Davie can survive the storm. One insider said his position was “untenable,” while another reckoned it was “game over.” A third concurred and said the fact that Davie was in attendance at Glastonbury on the day the Bob Vylan controversy happened only makes things worse.Davie, who is approaching his fifth anniversary as DG, is said to be severely wounded by the procession of scandals.The BBC has been holding its hands up to mistakes, but senior figures at the corporation have blamed constant unrest over output on social media bubbles. “When people come out of that quite polarized environment … and meet BBC content, which is striving to be impartial, they can feel that it is an attack on their values,” BBC News CEO Deborah Turness told staff last month.With Davie’s position being questioned, an influential lawmaker advised the director general to appoint a “wingman” editorial trouble shooter, particularly as he is not a journalist by background. This person said Mark Thompson, the CNN chief who once ran the BBC, used his deputy Mark Byford in this capacity, but the role of second-in-command has since fallen out of fashion.A former BBC board member contested that Davie is “no less in control” than any of his predecessors, while his former colleague, quoted earlier, said the criticism was “harsh” because “even though mistakes were made, that’s the nature of creative endeavor in a controversial space.”Others think that if questions about his leadership start to color political negotiations about the BBC’s future, it will be difficult to keep Davie in post. “I think he could be nearing the end of his luck,” an employee warned. “It’s been a bad run and it’s starting to impact charter renewal.”
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