The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

BBC New York Times Lord Patten

Senior MPs question BBC's £450,000 pay-off to George Entwistle after two months as director general

Author

By Stephen Lepitak | -

November 12, 2012 | 3 min read

Senior MP’s, including the chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport committee John Whittingdale, have criticised George Entwistle’s payoff of a year’s salary, despite having held the role of director general for less than two months.

According to The Telegraph, Entwistle, who resigned on Saturday evening as part of the fall out of the Newsnight broadcast which made false allegations of child abuse against Lord McAlpine, will receive £450,000, alongside a pension pot of £877,000.

Said Whittingdale, "A lot of people would be very surprised that somebody who was in the job for such a short period of time and then had to leave in these circumstances should be walking away with £450,000 of licence fee-payers' money."

Enwistle’s departure led to BBC Worldwide chairman Lord Patten doing the rounds of media interviews yesterday, stating that he had no intention to resign and that Newsnight would continue to be broadcast by the BBC.

Speaking to Andrew Marr yesterday, admitted that, in part, Entwistle has gone due to his lack of curiosity over the original Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile and overseeing the most recent broadcast into child abuse.

“From the beginning, unfortunately, he was at least implicated in the first crisis, because he'd been director of [BBC] Vision when that original Newsnight programme [on Savile] had [not] gone out. So it made it very difficult for him to tackle to whole thing,” he added.

Of his own involvement in the Newsnight broadcast, Patten said he could not have asked questions when hearing that it was investigation Conservative Politicians of child abuse, but claimed that he did ask if it was being properly edited.

Meanwhile, Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson begins his new role as chief executive of the New York Times newspaper today, with many questions being asked around his previous role at the BBC.

BBC New York Times Lord Patten

More from BBC

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +