Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC

Based on the most extensive independent research ever conducted inside the BBC, this gripping history concentrates on the corporation during the late 1990s and the last years of the regime of the former director-general John Birt. Blending reportage and cultural history, it offers both a panorama of the BBC’s history and an intimate portrait of its peopleproducers, directors, editors, accountants, and managers. It also addresses the tumultuous recent events at the BBC and looks to the future challenges of satellite and digital broadcasting; the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry; and to what might lie ahead for the new chairman and director-general. This is an engrossing, controversial, and definitive account of the greatest broadcasting organization in the world at the most fascinating period of its history.