In current months, Matt Brittin, the Doctor Who-loving health fanatic and former Google government, has made no secret of his need to make the soar from large tech to the world of broadcasting.
At the finish of final 12 months, he advised an occasion full of a few of tv’s most senior figures that he had needed to interrupt into their trade “for a very long time”.
As the BBC’s new director common, Brittin has not solely fulfilled that objective. He has parachuted into the British media’s strongest – and treacherous – job.
The 57-year-old may be an enormous believer in the transformative energy of sleep – certainly one of Brittin’s favorite books is Why We Sleep, by the neuroscientist, Matthew Walker – however his new job is assured to make sure he has much less of it.
Brittin, who left Google as its chief in Europe, the Middle East and Africa final 12 months, was not amongst the names initially touted to succeed Tim Davie.
When Davie introduced his resignation final 12 months, it was extensively thought {that a} lady can be subsequent to steer “Auntie”.
However, in an indication of the pressures and scrutiny positioned on the BBC’s chief, apparent candidates – largely girls – did not apply. Meanwhile, Deborah Turness, the former BBC News boss extensively seen as Davie’s most well-liked successor, resigned alongside her boss after a row over alleged BBC bias.
With considerations rising over how perilous the job had develop into, Brittin’s standing as a senior determine from certainly one of the world’s strongest corporations proved it nonetheless had a major draw.
It is not laborious to see the BBC board’s attraction to a business, large tech determine, as the company seeks to make a decisive shift in the direction of digital platforms and minimize prices by utilizing expertise.
“He’s what they’re looking for,” mentioned Mark Oliver, a former BBC technique chief. “Someone who’s an operational leader, plus an ability to perform in a public sphere and deal with government.
“He seems to have been generally well-liked by the people who worked with him at Google. He fits.”
As some insiders have already identified, nonetheless, he arrives at New Broadcasting House with no broadcasting expertise – and a few imagine he’s in for a impolite awakening.
“It would be a big culture shock for him,” in line with one BBC determine. Not as a result of the company was bureaucratic, they mentioned, however in contrast with Google “there is no money whatsoever, [the] BBC is highly regulated, and as a public service BBC audiences expect no cuts”.
Given Brittin’s CV, Claire Enders, the founding father of Enders Analysis, mentioned it was a coup for the BBC and he would have the respect of presidency.
“It’s quite extraordinary to have someone of that stature who has no necessity whatsoever for status,” she mentioned. “He’s a very thoughtful and calm person who would never have applied if he hadn’t considered this deeply. I think there is an element of real public-spiritedness.
“It is very brave for someone to step into that kind of 24/7 position.”
There isn’t any query that Brittin, a member of the British Olympic rowing crew in 1988, will instantly discover himself navigating treacherous waters.
Not solely is the BBC going through the identical modifications in consumption disrupting all conventional media. It additionally faces main political challenges – the quick talks over its funding mannequin and the close to fixed, usually partisan hostility over its funding and its protection.
He can be working in an surroundings by which the BBC has already introduced a serious financial savings programme operating into the lots of of hundreds of thousands, as the licence payment has eroded in worth.
And that every one comes earlier than he has needed to cope with the crises that by no means appear to be removed from the director common’s desk.
While Brittin ended up in large tech, he’s extra of a enterprise strategist than a tech bro. He began life as a McKinsey advisor, earlier than transferring to Trinity Mirror, the writer now renamed Reach. “After seven years [as a] strategy consultant, you’d think I’d have spotted a strategically challenged industry,” he mentioned of his time there.
By 2007, he had been recruited by Google to run its UK operations. There he stayed for virtually 20 years earlier than leaving final 12 months for what he known as a “mini-gap year”.
His time with large tech naturally comes with baggage. While broadcasters and publishers fear about the lack of regulation round on-line content material, Brittin has been essential of the extent of European regulation.
Some very senior broadcasting figures additionally wish to see the BBC prioritise British-owned tech like the iPlayer, fairly than be “captured by Silicon Valley”.
“To what extent can someone who is quintessentially big tech help solve problems without thinking ‘big tech’, as opposed to British tech,” mentioned one. “You tend to feel amongst the elites in the UK that, well, it’s all over. Google now runs everything forevermore.”
He confronted some public scrutiny at Google – most notably a infamous 2016 Commons choose committee look by which he was questioned about Google’s small company tax invoice. During the exchanges, he appeared to counsel he did not know how much he was paid.
He has additionally been challenged about permitting the likes of far-right activist Tommy Robinson on YouTube. “Obviously, I find his point of view on the world abhorrent,” he mentioned in 2019. “There is a responsibility here that balances freedom of speech, versus stopping hate speech and incitement to violence.”
Such challenges will now be an virtually every day prevalence.
Unlike at Google and its mountains of money, the BBC job comes with troublesome monetary choices. It could be very seemingly workers and programmes will have to go as a part of the present spherical of cuts.
The large lacuna in his CV is editorial expertise. “What happens when the next Bafta fuck up happens, because you have to be very fleet of foot in those situations,” mentioned one manufacturing government, referring to the BBC’s failure to chop out a racial slur from its protection of the ceremony.
Brittin can be helped by a new deputy director common, which is now very prone to be somebody steeped in editorial decision-making.
Some insiders imagine that, in impact, outsourcing accountability for editorial to a deputy is “lunacy”, though others see it as a consequence of simply how broad the prime BBC job has now develop into.
When requested to sum up his management philosophy on a podcast, Brittin revealed one other high quality he’ll want in the director common’s chair. “Listening well is the most important thing,” he mentioned.
Running the BBC, Brittin will have no scarcity of individuals keen to share their ideas on the establishment. The key problem for the broadcasting convert can be tuning into the proper voices amongst the cacophony.
