Forward thinker

In May this year, BBC DG Mark Thompson confessed to "secretly planning" his departure from the BBC for more than seven years. In an interview for the student journalism course at Lincoln University, he said that from the moment London won the Olympics (in July 2005) he thought that would be a great moment "to finish my tour of duty".

Since July 2005, BBC expenses and travel claims show a range of business visits by Mark to the USA.

Los Angeles December 2005
Washington March 2006
Seattle September 2006
Los Angeles/San Francisco April 2008
Washington/Las Vegas January 2009
Los Angeles January 2010
Washington October 2010
New York February 2012

A planned trip to New York in November 2011 was cancelled.

From the Guardian: 17 August 2012: Among the expenses claims is a £3,245.73 return flight to new York taken by Thompson in February. Earlier this week, Thompson was named as the new chief executive of the New York Times Company. The newspaper publisher had been seeking a replacement since December, when Janet Robinson stepped down. 

The spokeswoman said Thompson did not meet any executives from the New York Times, or any company related to the newspaper publisher, about the vacancy while he was on the business trip for the BBC in February. "This trip had a full itinerary and was to attend BBC and BBC Worldwide related meetings," she said. "For clarity, there have been no occasions when BBC time or money has been used in the process of him finding a new role."