Greg Dyke

Greg Dykeis a British businessman, journalist, and broadcaster best known as the director general (2000–04) of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Dyke was educated at a local west London grammar school. He subsequently tried various jobs, including a position as a management trainee for the retail chain Marks & Spencer. He then worked briefly at two local newspapers before studying politics at the University of York. Afterward, he worked as the press officer for Wandsworth Council, a local authority in south London, and as a researcher for London Weekend Television (LWT), a commercial television company, where he swiftly rose to become an editor of the topical weekly London Programme.

In 1983 Dyke was recruited by TV-am, a new company broadcasting at breakfast time on Britain’s main commercial channel in opposition to the BBC. TV-am was in serious trouble, losing viewers and money. Employing various populist devices, including the introduction of a segment for children dominated by a puppet rodent named Roland Rat, Dyke restored TV-am’s fortunes. In 1987 he returned to LWT, and he became its chief executive in 1990. He led LWT’s successful bid to retain its franchise; as a result of a share bonus scheme linked to the franchising bid, he became an instant millionaire, with a fortune estimated at £10 million (more than $16 million). When LWT was taken over by the Granada Group in 1994, Dyke worked successively for Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB cable and satellite television company and for Pearson Television.

By that time the BBC’s chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, who had been Dyke’s chairman at LWT, was looking for someone to succeed Sir John Birt at the BBC. Dyke was his choice, though controversy surrounded Dyke’s application. On his appointment, Dyke stressed that he would resist any “Roland Rat”–style dumbing down of the BBC and committed himself to the retention of the BBC’s core public-service values. There was further uproar when it was revealed that Dyke had donated £55,000 (about $91,000) to the Labour Party over five years. His critics argued that this display of partisanship disqualified him from running the BBC, the world’s largest public-service broadcasting organization, which carried a reputation that had been built on its strict political impartiality. Dyke responded by resigning his membership in the party, pointing out that he had been completely open at all stages about his political donations.

Despite such controversies, Dyke was appointed director general of the BBC in 1999, officially succeeding Birt in 2000. In 2003, however, an inquiry was launched after the BBC reported that the Labour government had exaggerated claims concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq War. The resulting report cleared the government but was highly critical of the BBC. Days after the report’s release in January 2004, Dyke resigned. Later that year he began serving as chancellor of the University of York, a post he held until 2015. In addition, Dyke served as chairman of both the British Film Institute (2008–16) and the Football Association (2013–16), the governing body of English football (soccer). In 2018 he became chairman of the London Film School. His autobiography, Greg Dyke: Inside Story (2004), chronicles his career at the BBC.