Richard Sharp will not lead a BBC revolution

If you wanted to start a revolution would you choose an Oxford educated multi-millionaire banker to lead it? Not the obvious choice is it? Which is why the news that the next chairman of the BBC Board is to be ex-Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp looks very like a retreat from any serious attempt to reform the Corporation. Tim Davie, the Director-General (DG) and the rest of the BBC executive board will be breathing sighs of relief; it looks very much like ‘business as usual’ at New Broadcasting House. The Revolution is postponed.

In choosing Mr Sharp, a walking caricature of the Establishment, the Johnson government is signalling that it’s opting for a quiet life rather than conflict with the BBC. It is also demonstrating a continuing fondness for moneymen. Since the turn of the century there have been seven chairmen at the BBC and four have been bankers. Richard Sharp isn’t even the first Goldman Sachs man in the role – Gavyn Davies also served the ‘giant vampire squid’ of the banking world before his years at the BBC.