Ox

There are attempts in various Sunday papers to characterise DG George Entwistle's approach to his new job as different. He'll try to meet people, visit key departments, do question and answer sessions, take a real interest in programme-makers, work open-plan, travel on the tube, etc.

The reality is very different. By week two or three, he'll be fully sequestered by the system, trapped in a hamster-wheel of bureaucratic process, silently screaming for a chance to watch a programme or two. The BBC is run by committee. His executive board meets monthly, and takes, on average, 16 papers or reports requiring approval. His finance committee meets monthly; there, approvals come in bunches, and papers quite often take two or three goes to pass. His unwieldy Direction Group (a consolation prize for not being on the Executive Board) meets monthly. The Trust meets monthly - another dozen reports to be on top of. Then there are the "pre-meets" - big papers need squaring off, so they don't have the humiliation of rejection. Weeks can go by where the only discussion of output is over coffee - and contact with programme-makers takes place in strides between meetings. Apart from the regular "daily call" to be chaired, where Execs twitch and jabber over the latest kicking from the Telegraph, Mail or Times.  And meetings over programme complaints - from Editorial Standards, the Trust and Ofcom.

On top of the routine, George also has to find a new Director of Vision and a new COO.  There may be a need for new leadership at BBC Worldwide. This is the school term for annual announcements of detailed job losses under DQF. There are plans to restructure staff terms and conditions of employment, and changes needed in the way freelances are hired, as Select Committees hunt down one-man service companies. There are a number of technology projects still stumbling along.

So George will need the constitution of an ox, and will lose any summer tan within a month. The keeper of his diary will be an important shield and style-setter.  Would you fancy this week, from Mark Thompson's diary in 2009 ?