Why I can’t bring myself to join in the national rejoicing over Michael Grade

Michael Grade’s appointment as the new chairman of the BBC has won universal praise from every quarter. Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, and Julie Kirkbride, her Tory shadow, both like him. The editors of the Daily Express and the Financial Times think he is fine. Columnists and profile-writers sing his praises. Even the Daily Mail, which raged against Mr Grade as a pornographer when he was chief executive of Channel 4, declared that ‘we unhesitatingly wish him the best of luck’.

No doubt there is something wrong with me, but I cannot quite bring myself to join in this national rejoicing. I am sure that Mr Grade is a larger-than-life character and marvellous raconteur, as every profile of him tells us. He has undoubtedly been a very successful businessman. He is probably a wonderful man-manager. But these qualities will be of very limited use to him in his new role. The chairman of the BBC has no executive duties. He is, above all, the custodian of the Corporation, the person who must do whatever he can to ensure that the BBC remains true to its values. For all his virtues, Mr Grade is a lightweight.

He has already tried his hand at public-service broadcasting during his nine-year stint at Channel 4. No one would say, I think, that when he left the channel in 1997 he had raised the standard of its programmes. Some of them were distinguished — playwrights such as Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale were commissioned — but Mr Grade generally lowered the tone. He was responsible for The Word, which once showed a man having the contents of a colostomy bag emptied over his head, as well as a vomiting Santa Claus.