Audio socket

It will fall to BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore to find a replacement for James Purnell as Director of Audio.

A couple of years ago, Bob Shennan would have been the obvious choice. He has some disadvantages in the modern BBC - 58, white, Oxbridge. On the plus side, he did bring June Sarpong into the fold.  He's currently pretending to enjoy the job of Managing Director (Covid response is his specialist subject). His problem is that, in Tim Davie's restructuring, Managing Director is on the Executive Board, and Director of Audio isn't. The next Director of Audio will have a lower salary than James Purnell's £315k - much closer to his radio controllers, who are mostly under £180k. Bob is currently on £303k. 

Can Charlotte promote from within the existing ranks ?  Radio 4 is seen as the 'senior service', and Mohit Bakaya brings diversity - though he's only been in the Controller's chair for just over a year. Lorna Clarke runs all the pop music stations, and has a new raft of station heads reporting to her - she must be a contender. Jonathan Wall, the Controller of BBC Sounds, is not short of ambition. In the end, it might be a genuine competition, with Charlotte looking for someone with a clear and detailed five-year strategy, that can drop nicely into licence-fee negotiations in the year ahead.

Tim Davie ran Audio & Music from 2008 to 2012, and won't be short of advice for Charlotte.  I'm afraid the commercial radio world doesn't have many obvious candidates - their speciality over the last five years has been consolidation, which provides few platforms for innovation - but I'd love to be corrected by readers.