Not onside

 Huw Edwards shares some new-ish stuff in a long interview with Andrew Billen in The Times' Saturday Magazine. His pneumonia early this year was covid-related.  His struggle with his weight over the last three years was also a battle with depression. He took a 20% pay cut amid the brou-ha-ha over gender relativity. 

And he hasn't always felt secure as a BBC1 newscaster. 

"If you’ve been in an organisation a long time, you know damn well how it works. You can feel a chill wind sometimes and that’s all down to individuals and their personal tastes. I went through a phase where there was a controller of BBC One who was definitely not onside. You then have to be in a position where you know other people will stand up for you.

"So you need to be thinking, ‘OK, if that person’s not onside, is the director of news onside? The head of television? The DG? The deputy DG?’ You have an axis, and the axis will change because people change. I’ve always been careful, for reasons of survival, to be honest, to make sure that I’m not exposed totally, because there will be people perfectly entitled to say, ‘I actually would prefer X to Y.’ ”

Huw became the main presenter of the Six in 1999. Controllers of BBC1 since then ?  Peter Salmon, Lorraine Heggesey, Peter Fincham, Roly Keating (acting), Jay Hunt, Danny Cohen and Charlotte Moore.