T ONY Hall, the BBC's new Director-General, has now made the two appointments that will be critical in determining the Corporation's recovery from recent setbacks.
The easier of the two choices was probably that of James Harding as Director of News; if a young and successful former editor of The Times is available you don't hesitate to invite him to join you -- Rupert Murdoch's loss is the BBC's gain.
In scale Director of Television is the biggest job, taking in all four major channels as well as in-house production; the budget is probably around one billion pounds. The job has gone to Danny Cohen, not yet 40, who has been Director of BBC One for the past three years after experience in commercial TV. Mr Cohen has several successes to his name and is skilled in the peak-hour scheduling war that the BBC and ITV fight on a daily basis.
Lord Hall pinpointed Mr Cohen's ability to provide viewers with a mixture of high-quality programmes they enjoy whilst also introducing them to new subjects they might not have considered before -- a neat summary of the fundamental objective of all BBC programming.
One area close to Lord Hall's own strong interests and in need of urgent attention is that of the arts which is at a low ebb at the moment. He will watch it, I'm sure.
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