New challenges

Perhaps the new BBC landscape was only big enough for one grand international fromage - and that probably has to be ex-foreign correspondent and linguist James Harding. Peter Horrocks, Director of the BBC World Service Group, leaves Auntie in the New Year, taking him past his 55th birthday, after 33 years with the corporation.

Described by Lord Hall as "a force of nature", he started as a news trainee in 1981 (King's College School Wimbledon and Christ's Cambridge), and ere long was producing at Newsnight and Panorama. He was a youthful editor of Public Eye, a Birt construct, on tv, and launched its successor, Here and Now. On the long journey of management, he's edited Newsnight, Panorama, and the whole of TV Current Affairs. He took over TV News from Roger Mosey, and integrated tv bulletins into the rolling news channel, to sharp intakes of breaths from old codgers. In 2009 he moved to World Service, and led the tricky move out of Bush House, which seemed to re-energise those who survived the transition.

In difficult times post-Savile, his ascetic approach to journalism was quite sharp-elbowed, producing a Panorama special on what had gone wrong at Newsnight, shown on October 22 2012.  Some three weeks later, DG George Entwistle resigned. When the second Newsnight kerfuffle, over "identifying" Lord MacAlpine, blew up, Adrian Van Klaveren was in loco parentis, because Horrocks was on long service leave.

In recent days, Peter has been proudly tweeting about the reach of bbc.com, coming very close to overtaking CNN.com; he's also announced a partial reprieve for access programme World Have Your Say. He's emerged as an advisor to Critical Eye, a "community of leaders". His post will be advertised - will his successor be rewarded with a package of £240,759 ? There will also be a vacancy in the BBC staff choir.