Beeb's man moves with the Times to save US institution

Former British Broadcasting Corporation Director-General Mark Thompson. Photo / AP

It's just as well Mark Thompson's biting days are behind him. American newspapers take a dimmer view of newsroom hijinks than the BBC did when its future director-general bit into a junior reporter's arm when he was running the Nine O'Clock News in the late 1980s.

One can only imagine the disciplinary uproar that "man bites man" might cause at the stately New York Times, the beacon of liberal news gathering in the United States, which Thompson is going to run.

The British executive has come far. But as he sets sail for the US and new challenges, he may yet again have to bare his teeth. With revenues falling, the New York Times looks in need of the same cost-cutting that Thompson brought to the Beeb.

Thompson takes up the post of new chief executive in November, a few weeks after he hands over the BBC's reins to George Entwistle.

For watchers of the US newspaper scene, the appointment of a man steeped in news broadcasting, with no print experience on his CV, looks a leftfield appointment to run the Gray Lady. Yet there are more similarities between the BBC and the New York Times than might appear.

Both have built huge news operations across the world that pride themselves on objective reporting, while being assailed by outsiders for a perceived liberal bias. Both have a public service mission at their core.

Both, in their different ways, have been pioneers on the internet, the New York Times having built by far the richest American newspaper website and a powerful brand that has expanded across the US and now has ambitions internationally.

And both are facing a harsh squeeze on their revenues. Thompson made big cuts at the BBC and forced reporters to work across more of the broadcaster's platforms.

At the Times, falling advertising revenues have cancelled out the benefits of introducing a paywall on the website, and its shares are bumping along at all-time lows. Ed Atorino, analyst at Benchmark Company, who monitors media shares, is not a fan of the appointment.

"The fact is he's British and he's not a print guy, and there are a lot of prima donna reporters at the paper, the cream of the crop. Will he speak their language? Can he have an immediate impact? He'll face a lot of problems with strong print unions, he inherits a declining print business, he has to deal with very difficult competitive and economic conditions."

Thompson has spent almost his entire career in public broadcasting, almost all of that at the BBC. His impending arrival has been greeted with a mix of caution and even optimism in the newsroom. The talk from management was not of grim cuts but of the exciting digital future and Thompson's strong record in moving the BBC online. The fact that the Olympics, streamed in their entirety online, were a triumph - in contrast to the terrible reception NBC's sporadic coverage received in the US - helped boost his stock.

"The Times needs to be transformed and people are more receptive to an outsider than they would have been five years ago," says Reed Phillips of media-focused investment bank DeSilva & Phillips. "The rank and file are looking for someone to take charge and show them the way to the future. The New York Times is clearly looking for a change agent, and for a pretty dramatic transformation away from print."

- Independent