The first Biff

Mark Byford was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, but followed dad, Lawrence Byford when he became Chief Constable of Lincoln, to secondary education at Lincoln School. Friends knew him as "Biff". He was slightly accident prone. One contemporary remembers him telling their French teacher that his wife was a whore, in what they put down to a vocabulary misunderstanding. His woodwork teacher, Mr Kerr, noted  "I could chew his joints out better than he makes them."  Mr Howie, PE, made the memorable quotes register with "Forgot your shorts, Byford? Well then, boy, you'll do it naked."

He returned to Yorkshire to study Law at Leeds University, but was seduced by the media when he took holiday relief work in the Look North Newsroom, after a talk from one of the programme's presenters. He ditched plans for a career at the Bar, and signed up.  He moved from Leeds to Southampton, then became News Editor at BBC West in Bristol in 1987.  This was a significant year for the BBC and Byford. John Birt arrived as Deputy DG in July, and began looking around for the next generation to do his bidding. In October 1988, Byford became Home News Editor in London; in 1989 he returned to Yorkshire to become the head of the BBC North region, based in Leeds and in 1991, aged 33, he was appointed Controller Regional Broadcasting. He worked under Ron Neil and alongside John Shearer (who was to become known as Vlad The Impaler) to sharpen up/make dull BBC regional and local output with Birtian control and values.   In 1996, he joined the Board of Management as Director of Regional Broadcasting, as Ron moved on.

In 1998 John Birt seemed belatedly to discover that he owned the World Service, and it didn't conform to his operating  model.  So it was decided that the news and current affairs teams at Bush House were to be managed from W12; the man in charge Sam Younger was removed; and Byford, with no international hinterland, was suddenly top of the world.  For the first time, London-based journalists were exposed to "grids" of coverage, and compulsory lists of "top stories", which were Byford's tools to implement the Birt drive for context.  And in the search for metrics to please Birt, the chase for audience figures (whether entirely credible or not) led to a drive for partnerships with FM stations - where BBC output was free, but often seriously diluted.  In 2000 Birt was gone, but Byford still had plans. In 2002, Mark became Director of Global News - a title more out of Brass Eye than even Chris Morris could imagine.

In 2004 Mark became Deputy Director General to Greg Dyke, but that was only a matter of weeks before the astonishing outcome of the Hutton Report, and the failure of the Governors to back Dyke. Mark had to step up to the plate, but his homely and repetitive sentence construction was seriously exposed in interviews, and he blew his chances of the top job.

Instead, Mark Thompson came in, and gave him the consolation title of Director of Journalism, as well as DDG, and the grids and top story lists spread further and wider.  Birtian control was exercised through a fortnightly Journalism Board, which added Sport to its portfolio.  The meetings largely listened, as Mark gesticulated and adjusted his unusual hair. Jesuitical training was the answer to errors ranging from dodgy competitions to failures of regional coverage - and a huge, yes huge, College of Journalism was established.

It's too soon for measured conclusions. Birt, Byford and others certainly secured much more investment in BBC News than anyone could have imagined possible (and certainly more than "Vision" thinks sensible). But whether or not that money was always wisely spent may inform broadcasting history's judgement of Biff.