GPS

The summer is over - and triangulation, not hard information, still points to it being Mark Thompson's last as Director General of the BBC. He will be 55 next July 31st (nice day for Olympic swimming medals at Stratford and riding in Greenwich) - and will have notched up 8 years at the top of Auntie.

He wasn't at the Edinburgh International TV Festival this year (more likely at the in-laws' holiday retreat on Lake Mooselookmeguntic, Maine) - but featured early on in Google boss Eric Schmidt's McTaggart Lecture thus....

I’m especially indebted to Mark Thompson - who gave last year’s lecture - for his tips on what makes a classic MacTaggart. The recipe boils down to anger and arch-villains, impossible proposals and insults. I’m not sure about anger, but I’ll do my best to come up with the rest. 


Mark even identified candidates for demonising - usually a choice between the BBC and Murdoch. I must say how refreshing it is that Google isn’t on that list !


The Telegraph's Katherine Rushton, an astute new signing from Broadcast, followed up with this...

Others speculated that Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, had started laying the foundations for a job at Google. He is known to be keen eventually to take a post with links to America, and which will keep him in the £671,000-a-year manner to which he has become accustomed.


Triangulation work continues....