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British ministers are choosing veteran TV executive Samir Shah to chair the BBC, replacing former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharpe, who resigned earlier this year.
Shah has a 40-year career in TV and has previously held various roles including Non-Executive Director and Head of Current Affairs at the BBC in 2007.
He faces a series of immediate challenges as head of the BBC board, including the renegotiation of license fees until the renewal of the publicly funded corporation’s charter in 2027.
The decision is expected to be announced as early as Wednesday afternoon, according to two people familiar with the situation. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport declined to comment. Shah declined to comment.
The BBC chair – a political appointment made by the government and signed by the prime minister – acts as an intermediary between the corporation and ministers, often criticizing its news coverage, size and budget.
Shah has in the past criticized the BBC’s scale and organizational culture as an “isolated position” that it sees as anti-competitive.
Ministers are already planning to choose the lowest possible increase in license fees allowed under an agreement reached in 2022. The agreement freezes the license fee for two years – meaning a reduction in BBC funding, due to rising inflation – and then sets a further inflation-adjusted rate.
However, Culture Secretary Lucy Fraser told the Financial Times this year that she was concerned about the extra burden on households due to increased license fees amid the cost of living crisis. On Thursday, Fraser is expected to confirm his plans to set the minimum rate.
In an interview last month, Lord Michael Grade, chair of media watchdog Ofcom and former chair of the BBC, described the license fee as a “regressive tax”.
Shah has been running his own production company, Juniper Communications, since 1990, making shows for corporations and other channels.
After graduating from Hull and Oxford Universities he worked in the Home Office Research Intelligence Unit, before joining London Weekend Television as a researcher in 1979, where he became editor of a range of current affairs programmes.
As chair of the BBC, Shah will also be required to oversee several investigations into the scandal, involving presenters such as Huw Edwards and Tim Westwood.
The government was under pressure to avoid overtly political appointments after widespread criticism of the process that selected Richard Sharpe.
He resigned after an investigation found he had breached public appointment rules by failing to declare the support he provided to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson which led to him receiving an £800,000 loan.
Other contenders for the job include current acting chair Dame Ilan Claus-Stephens, who is popular at the BBC but has recently been forced to defend his position by ministers including Fraser over how the broadcaster deals with Hamas and the Israel-Gaza war. Describes its reporting.
Ministers used headhunters to reach out to a wide net of candidates, although many declined to put their names forward amid expectations that the job would involve plenty of firefighting over the next few years.