Tim Davie says top BBC staff will no longer be called ‘talent’

The director-general of the BBC has said he has “kind of banned” referring to top staff at the corporation as “talent” following controversies surrounding its high-profile presenters.

Tim Davie made the remarks after the corporation revealed details of a review into “preventing abuse of power and ensuring everyone at the BBC conducts themselves in line” following the furore over disgraced former presenter Huw Edwards.

Other controversies have included complaints about welfare checks for contestants on Strictly Come Dancing and the sacking of presenter Jermaine Jenas after he admitted sending inappropriate messages to female colleagues.

Mr Davie told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that no-one at the corporation is “indispensable”, while speaking to long-standing BBC journalist Nick Robinson.

He told Robinson: “We often refer to people like yourself as talent but I’ve kind of banned that. You’re a presenter, I’m a leader of the organisation, and we’re here to serve.

“I do think over the last decade or so we’ve seen fundamental changes in the culture in this industry, and it hasn’t been completely unique (to the BBC, and) those that have had power in places can often use that in bad ways.

“I think the BBC is utterly committed – you see us acting in good faith to get at this (issue) – and I would say (it is) important that everyone is treated equally regardless of rank.”

The review, led by Grahame Russell, the executive chairman and founder of Change Associates, will “be helpful for us” in “sorting this culture”, Mr Davie added.

He went on: “It’s about how people deploy power in a workplace, we’ve all seen it, it’s not unique to the BBC.

“Many good or bad things happen in the new age, but one thing we should take comfort from is that things are improving. People need to speak up and everyone at every level needs to be heard.”

The BBC boss was also asked if there has been progress on Edwards returning the estimated £200,000 salary he was paid between his arrest and leaving the corporation in April.

Mr Davie said he has had “some dialogue with the lawyers, but we’re yet to resolve that issue”, and suggested he is waiting for Edwards to respond.

Asked if he believes the money will be returned, Mr Davie added: “I think the ball is clearly not in my court on that one.”

Edwards, who admitted accessing indecent images of children as young as seven, was handed a suspended prison sentence last month.

Later on Monday, at the Future Resilience Forum, a non-partisan meeting attended by international political figures, Mr Davie will discuss the global importance of the BBC World Service, which operates across more than 40 languages.

He will warn that the retreat of the World Service due to funding cuts has helped Russia and China broadcast “unchallenged propaganda”.

Mr Davie also told the Today programme: “If you look at the long-term trends, this is about decades of strategy where, I think, malign powers, China, Russia, others see the benefit of investing heavily in the media – bordering into pure propaganda, but often just taking media assets, frequencies and broadcasting in a world in which 75% of the world doesn’t have a free press.

“We obsess a lot about the ins and outs of the BBC, appropriately, but, if you look at the big, macro trends, they are disturbing, more and more, and you cannot speak your mind, you cannot have the process we’re going through in terms of a free press interrogating politicians, and the World Service is a precious, incredibly important asset we need to nurture, and that goes beyond, frankly, BBC campaigning.”

He added that “China and Russia have been deliberately spending billions of dollars” amid the BBC cutting Arabic language radio services, and moving elsewhere for this type of content following cuts to its budget.

Mr Davie also said he “doesn’t think it’s appropriate to charge all of this to the UK licence-payer”, and suggested the World Service is an asset that should be maintained centrally by Government.