More on George

George Entwistle will be one of the most important people in UK broadcasting in the New Year - and a least for a while, having been announced as interim Director of BBC Vision. 

George, now 48, was brought up in Yorkshire, going to independent Silcoates School and then Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield, before heading to Durham to study Philosopy and Politics.

With a 2.1 under his belt, in 1983 he joined Michael Heseltine's Haymarket Publications, and gained a reputation as an "audiophile" with the readers of "Hi Fi Answers", who remember  his preferred reference set up of  Townsend Rock turntable/Audio Innovations amplifier/Snell speakers

He made it to the BBC in 1989 as a broadcast journalist trainee, then was appointed an assistant producer on Panorama. In 1993 he joined On The Record as a producer, where he won the nickname "General Sir George Entwistle", because of a track record of items about military history and  "an obsession with tanks and guns and stuff".  Then it was on to Newsnight, where he rose through the ranks - he took a year out to be deputy editor of Tomorrow's World in 1999, but was soon back with Paxo et al, eventually taking over as Editor less than 24 hours before the twin towers came under attack. His steady hand saw the programme through the Dr David Kelly/Andrew Gilligan period, when Susan Watts was also working on the story of the Iraq dossier. 

In 2004 he moved to lead a newly-created Topical Arts Unit, which, with a budget of £8m over two years, brought us the Culture Show, and a less-remembered offering, The Desk, a weekly media show presented by Tyler Brule.

In 2005 George was back in the bosom of news, as Head of TV Current Affairs, overseeing the move of Panorama back from Sunday night, to a new Jeremy Vine-fronted version, at just half an hour on Mondays.

In 2007, he was asked to run BBC4, during Controller Janie Hadlow's sabbatical. There he commissioned a
Golden Age Of Steam season; Julia Bradbury's Railway Walks series and Ian Hislop's documentary on the Beeching closures remain among the most watched factual programmes in the channel's history (it says in the BBC Press office bio).

In 2008, George acquired two roles - Controller, Knowledge Commissioning, following the departure of Glenwyn Benson, and Controller Editorial Standards, BBC Vision (a job created in Byfordian response to a range of issues, including the Blue Peter phone-in scandal). That year he also had to front the decision to drop tv coverage of Cruft's. 

Last year he was caught writing Birt-speak in a memo which found its way into the hands of C4's Jon Snow; it was all about how it was "imperative to engineer a major shift of commitment towards the devising and delivery of the integrated sub genre strategies essential to the next stage of the Knowledge strategy on all platforms".  The Sunday Times thought he might have had a comment to make about the infamous talent league table leaked in December last year, but George shut the door on a visiting reporter.  The bottom category was headed "Occasional sparkle (but limited appeal)", and featured Delia Smith, Michael Palin, Sophie Raworth and Giles Coren.

He lists his interests as reading, music, Gothic architecture, and watching rugby union.