Mo and Jo

Moderately-well-connected insiders think that the Radio 4 2019 Controller's Hurdle is down to two approaching the last fence. The field has been narrowed, through presentations and preliminaries, by course steward Bob Shennan (now off to The Jockey Club that is the BBC Corporate Centre).

Either of this final two would help James Purnell with the diversity of his current clutch of Controllers.

Mohit Bakaya, 54, has been a Commissioning Editor at Radio 4 since 2008, and would be seen as either the continuity candidate or part of the problem, if you regard 4 as unresponsive to a changing media landscape. He can claim one major podcast - the very expensive Intrigue: The Ratline - but the rest of his portfolio is pretty established - Any Questions and Answers, Feedback, Front Row, The Moral Maze and more. 

Jo Carr, running Current Affairs with News, is a BBC lifer, joining as a News Trainee in 1997. Her podcast success has been a daily special reporting the Grenfell Inquiry. She's worked on The World At One, and rose to Editor at PM, in the golden period of Eddie Mair. She was part of the launch team for The Politics Show on tv.  In her mid-forties, and perhaps more 'persuasive' on reinvention than Mo, Jo approaches the run-in ahead by a nose.

The final fence is a session with the DG, the Director of News and the Director of Radio and Education.