NO PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE : NEW HEAD OF BBC FACES BIG CHALLENGE

Fans of the embattled British Broadcasting Corp. have their fingers crossed these days, hoping that Michael Checkland, a 50-year-old accountant with no programming experience, can bring better times to the troubled national television and radio network.

Checkland was recently named to succeed Alasdair Milne as the BBC’s director general after a board of governors meeting that lasted a marathon 13 hours.

Checkland is regarded as a compromise, chosen by a board anxious to rebuild staff confidence and get the BBC off the political firing line.

Although he’d had the title of deputy director general for nearly two years, and had filled Milne’s shoes since he was forced to resign Jan. 29, Checkland was considered something of an outsider by the BBC staff.

“You don’t know me very well but I will see if I can improve on that in the next five years,” he told reporters recently at BBC headquarters in central London. “We have ($1.5 billion) to spend and I want to see most of that go on programs.”

Checkland pledged what he called “a steady kind of leadership,” and added, “I want to achieve change by pursuing the quality of our programs.”

The last 18 months of Milne’s reign were widely seen as the most tumultuous, most damaging period in the 60-year history of a corporation whose initials have come to be regarded as synonymous with quality broadcasting.

The BBC’s listening and viewing audience, estimated at 120 million, is one of the largest anywhere, mainly because of the BBC’s image as a uniquely successful, publicly funded organization that has historically enjoyed editorial independence and freedom from commercial pressures.

But an unprecedented assault on this independence over the last year and a half has left the BBC image dented, the morale of its 30,000 employees at an all-time low and its future overshadowed by large question marks.

People who follow the British news media believe that Checkland’s two most immediate tasks are to restore a sense of confidence among the editorial staff and restore rapport with the government, something that in the past has been a key to the BBC’s independence.

In his initial few weeks on the job, Checkland has received cautious endorsements from members of the corporation’s notoriously cynical staff.

He has cut down on senior management meetings, talked with corporation staff and trade union groups and eased the sense of confrontation between the Board of Governors and senior management.

His first major appointment, hiring 42-year-old John Birt away from the rival London Weekend Television to become deputy director-general responsible for news and current affairs, has been widely applauded.

Above all, Checkland is a known entity, a steady hand, a safe bet. Although he was the only candidate for the director generalship without programming experience, he has the reputation of being a disciplined manager of BBC resources, with strong rapport with producers and program directors.

His initial statements underscoring a commitment to quality programming are likely to reassure the staff.

“Stereotyping me by calling me an accountant is very easy,” he told the press, “but the last (purely) financial job I did was 10 years ago. Since then I’ve been in general management, making programs happen.”

He was a key figure in the purchase of additional studio capacity in Elstree, north of London, and he endorsed the BBC’s investigative journalism, which he called crucial to the democratic process. Contentious investigative documentaries have been a major point of strife between the government and the BBC.

Checkland has no political experience, but media observers believe that his record in dealing effectively with sensitive issues within the corporation is a positive sign that he has the personality necessary to protect the BBC against political attack.

“I’m not a person who gets overexcited,” he said.

Milne’s lack of diplomatic skills and his disdain for politically powerful people made few friends for the BBC, and gave it little leverage as it lurched from crisis to crisis.

While the BBC has been pressured by several government administrations, the intensity of recent confrontations has been particularly virulent. The most damaging of these have featured charges by members of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government and her Conservative Party that the BBC is guilty of left-wing political bias.

The first bombshell came in August of 1985, when the BBC Board of Governors withdrew under pressure a scheduled television documentary on political extremism in Northern Ireland after Thatcher and Leon Brittan, who was then her home secretary, condemned the program for its portrayal of terrorism. The attack was seen as a crude attempt at censorship.

Although an edited version of the program was eventually broadcast, the dispute led to a 24-hour strike by angry BBC staff members that halted all news and current events programs for the first time in BBC history. The BBC World Service, which is specifically for overseas listeners, suspended programming in all 37 languages, transmitting only music that was interrupted at 15-minute intervals with a brief statement that the staff was on strike to protest the withdrawal of the program.

The next attack, last fall, was led by Conservative Party leader Norman Tebbit, who began a carefully prepared campaign charging that the BBC’s reporting of the American air attack against Libya last April was heavily biased. His charges, which included transcripts comparing the BBC coverage with that of its commercial competitor, Independent Television News, dominated the headlines for days and sent further tremors through the BBC.

In a rare show of media solidarity, a group of newspaper and television editors recently named the BBC’s principal reporter on the Libyan story “International Journalist of the Year.” Their choice was widely regarded as more of a slap at the Thatcher government than acknowledgement of outstanding journalism.

After Tebbit, it was the turn of Thatcher’s Minister of State for Health, Edwina Currie, who charged that a BBC dramatic series dealing with the pressures of a large, inner-city hospital was undermining the government’s commitment to the National Health Service.

About this same time, BBC management suddenly reversed a decision to defend BBC television’s flagship current events program, “Panorama,” against a libel suit brought by two Conservative members of Parliament. It cost the BBC $750,000 in damages, thousands more in court costs and a little more of its reputation.

Then, in January, Milne seemed to be bowing again to government pressure when he decided not to air a six-part documentary entitled “The Secret Society,” which disclosed information about a British spy satellite. Thatcher said it would compromise national security.

Amazed British television viewers watched the BBC cover a police raid on its own Glasgow studios as investigators searched for clues to the identity of government officials who might have leaked information about the satellite.

Those who monitor BBC internal affairs believe it was the handling of the “Panorama” incident that led key members of the Board of Governors to decide that Milne had to go. In the few minutes between the adjournment of a morning Board of Governors meeting and a follow-on lunch Jan. 29, BBC Board Chairman Marmaduke Hussey and the deputy chairman, Lord Barnett, cornered Milne in an office and ordered him to resign or be fired.

Arriving late for the lunch, Hussey gained the room’s attention by tapping his wine glass and calmly announced that Milne had resigned for personal reasons.

Among the more difficult tasks now facing Checkland will be steering the BBC through an emotion-charged general election, which must come in the year ahead, without the coverage becoming an issue.

“I am sure there are going to be all sorts of pressures, particularly during an election year,” he said. “I think the pressures will be from all political parties, not just the Tories.”

But aside from repairing damaged morale and engaging in delicate diplomacy with a government that can protect the BBC while still preserving its independence, Checkland must face the deeper question of the BBC’s future direction.

In recent years, the need to justify funding the corporation’s annual $1.5-billion budget by making all owners of televisions buy licenses has added pressure within the BBC to boost its ratings. The pressure has been accentuated by a chorus of influential voices pushing the BBC to accept advertising as a source of revenue, a move strenuously opposed by the BBC.

As a result, spending on dramatic productions has risen six-fold over the past decade while the BBC’s current-events programming budgets have doubled. Whether the corporation should continue this trend or go back to emphasizing news and current events has been a major topic of internal debate.

The choice of Milne’s successor would appear to provide at least some clues to future direction.

A leading contender for the job, David Dimbleby, a television personality and newspaper publisher, reportedly had advocated a stronger commitment to current-events coverage, while another candidate, Michael Grade, the director of BBC television programs, is said to have expressed the opposite view.

Hussey left no doubt that he felt Checkland was the right choice.

“We all believe Michael Checkland will be a great director general,” he said. “And if he is a great director general, some of these controversies will, I hope, disappear.”