Mark Damazer
Chris Patten – who must stay – and Tim Davie should be allowed to respond to the evidence that emerges from the various inquiries and thereafter make what are going to be very difficult judgments.
The tumult around them will continue – at least for a while. But although they need to be acutely aware of what is being said, and by whom, they do not need to respond to the day to day demands and rhythms generated by the commentariat or individual politicians.
The BBC's reporting and analysis of the sequence of events around Newsnight has been predictably probing and makes for uncomfortable viewing and listening. That should – and will – continue. But the BBC is neither rotten nor ruined and the rhetoric within should allow for the fact that the BBC has survived a great many crises and is a great and consistent force for the public good. And neither Chris Patten nor Tim Davie need be embarrassed about saying so.
Mark Damazer is the master of St Peter's College, Oxford, and a former controller of BBC Radio 4
Jean Seaton
When John Humphrys humanely put down George Entwistle on the Today programme he began the fightback to save the corporation. BBC News was salivating to attack itself: a remarkable sign of the priceless singularity of the BBC.
Does the BBC need radical reform? Certainly a principled, ruthless, strategic grip may be needed to restore a sense of propriety and purpose. But a crisis about an editorial decision is mutating into a constitutional one.
As predatory commercial and political enemies sense blood, we should be deeply alarmed by the inadequacy of the institutions that are there to protect our public interest in broadcasting. They leave the BBC vulnerable.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) was originally founded to make sure that the things Britain did well (broadcasting, the arts, creativity) had a voice at the cabinet table. Now it is a dangerously emaciated shadow of its proper self.
The affair really started with savage cuts to the BBC's revenues, associated with a politically endorsed, seemingly irresistible rise in Sky revenues. The last licence fee final negotiations were hair-raisingly negotiated with virtually no civil service participation – and now the department has lost half its staff. It neither has neither a minister nor a civil service presence of experience that understands the subtle constitutional niceties that are necessary to protect the unique position of the corporation.
So, while the BBC needs to put its house in order we ought to welcome Chris Patten's determination to act. He has already had to re-invent the BBC Trust to make it a proper guardian of the World Service. Perhaps he is in the best place to know what needs to be done – not out of place as his critics suggest.
Jean Seaton is the official historian of the BBC
Richard Sambrook
When Greg Dyke was ousted eight years ago, he said the BBC would do whatever necessary to survive. It will be true this time too.
Tim Davie is an excellent choice as acting DG, but he will need experienced editorial support. What's needed is a steadying hand – preferably one that has been through BBC firestorms before and understands the dynamics and politics of these crises. Someone who can reassure the staff editorially, and the BBC Trust and politicians politically. There are few left in-house after recent management culls.
Longer term, the director general needs a deputy who can focus purely on editorial issues unencumbered by the demands of direct line management. It worked with Mark Byford supporting Mark Thompson and with John Birt supporting Michael Checkland.
The BBC is not like a newspaper or any other TV channel; it produces 40 hours of output for every hour of real time, day and night, and is woven into the fabric of national life. The scale of management responsibility and, rightly, accountability is unlike any other media organisation – as any outsider coming in soon discovers to their shock.
The inevitable reorganisation needs to focus on clearer lines of accountability – the heart of this particular crisis – and closing the cultural gap between editors and managers.
Finally, politicians need to give the BBC space to put its house in order. Continued pressure under the guise of public interest risks turning into political interference.
Richard Sambrook is director of the centre for journalism at Cardiff University and a former BBC news executive
Ben Bradshaw
George Entwistle was chewed up and spat out by the dysfunctional BBC management system and culture he was appointed to change.
He began as director general less than eight weeks ago with the unanimous support of the BBC Trust as the outstanding candidate for the job. He has been disastrously let down by news managers twice and, without the support he should have been able to expect to get on top of the crisis, it will now fall to someone else to implement the "thorough and radical" change Lord Patten accepts is required to the structure and culture of BBC management.
This cannot simply be a reshuffling of failed news executives as happened after the Gilligan scandal. Then, both the director general and chairman went, rightly in my view, but those managers responsible stayed and some were even promoted.
The first thing Lord Patten needs to do, which he seems to acknowledge, is to split the job of director general into separate chief executive and editor-in-chief roles.
Secondly, he must deliver the radical management changes he's promised. This is essential to restore the public's trust and the morale of those who work for the BBC. Finally, politicians and the BBC must agree a new system of independent regulation. The BBC's governance structure has let it down yet again. It is not fit for purpose. Self regulation does not work.
The Trust's role must be split, with it's regulatory responsibilities handed to Ofcom, which does a perfectly good job at regulating the rest of broadcasting. This is what the Labour government should have done after the Hutton inquiry, but shied away from. It should happen now and the BBC should welcome it, for it's own future's sake.
Ben Bradshaw is a former secretary of state for culture, media and sport and an ex-BBC reporter
Jana Bennett
The irony about the terrible loss of the BBC's director general is that George Entwistle was just setting out to reform and modernise the way the BBC is run. The Trust gave him that mandate. So losing someone of his integrity is a cruel blow to him and the BBC.
Stabilsing the BBC right now is crucial. Currently it is looking to appoint new heads for TV, radio – and now, sadly, the DG role. The BBC has to rebuild Newsnight, the strand that has so failed its public and the BBC, starting with the programme's editorial team.
Newsnight is one of Britain's most important news analysis shows, though I may be biased having spent a long stretch of my career as a journalist as a Newsnight output editor and field producer. If Newsnight is to do film investigations, it needs better resourcing and more time. It also needs to replace its depleted editorial team as the first step to rebuild its reputation. We need a Newsnight on the BBC.
More widely, the BBC needs to strengthen the key role of editor and simplify the layers above to ensure there are clear lines of communication, accountability and support. After all, looking at this from the outside, it is in these layers that messages and scrutiny appear to have gone missing. Break the BBC down into smaller units and avoid overly complex, amorphous tri-media constructs which no one understands – inside or out.
While multiplatform and digital media need to be integrated and are now a part of television and radio, keeping strong editorial leadership of the major services is vital.
Keep a strong chair to defend the BBC's independence and accountability through the Trust.
Create a CEO post as chief editorial officer to support the DG as a primus inter pares on the executive board. They must have no conflict of interest and therefore should not hold the budgets of news, television or radio, but editorial policy and legal affairs should report to them directly. Their role must be to prevent such a catastrophic breakdown in standards while also protecting fearless and strong journalism, not only within news but also in documentaries, drama, etc.
After all, the biggest casualty in all this has been the truth. The truth about what Savile did and how his victims were left, unbelieved and unprotected, and the truth about what happened in the children's care home in north Wales.
Jana Bennett is a media executive and former president of BBC Worldwide channels