Lord Michael Grade appointed as new Ofcom chairman

Lord Michael Grade, the TV executive, businessman and former BBC controller has been named as the new chairman of Ofcom.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced he will now oversee the UK's media regulator.

Conservative peers Ed Vaizey and Stephen Gilbert were thought to be among the other candidates.

The process was overseen by civil servant Sue Gray, who also carried out the recent "partygate" probe.

The recruitment process for the three-day-a-week, £142,000 job has taken two years, with ex-Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre reportedly having been in the running at one stage.

Earlier this year, Lord Grade warned that the BBC's £159 licence fee was "too much money" and suggested the corporation should close channels to cut costs.

"It's like the monarchy - it exists to survive and it has given up no territory whatsoever," he told Radio 4's Today programme. "Why do we need both BBC Two and BBC Four for example? [Entire channels] must go."

Lord Grade, 79, who started his career as a sports journalist in the 1960s, has formerly been chief executive of ITV, and also worked at Channel 4.

His father was theatrical agent Leslie Grade and his uncle was ITV founder Lew Grade. He joined the family business as a theatrical agent in 1966, before moving into TV in 1973.

Working at London Weekend Television, he poached Bruce Forsyth from the BBC and commissioned programmes such as The Professionals and the South Bank Show.

He joined the BBC in 1984 and became controller of BBC One two years later. There, he launched Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective, and purchased the Australian soap opera Neighbours for the channel's new daytime schedule.

Sir Bob Geldof said nobody else would have had "the bottle" to hand over the network to broadcast the Live Aid charity concert in 1985; while his other decisions included scrapping sci-fi favourite Doctor Who, and cancelling coverage of beauty pageants, calling them an "anachronism in this day and age".

So Michael Grade is back. How does he want to reform the media - and will he be free to do so?

One of the most experienced figures in British broadcasting, Grade was widely held to be an effective and galvanising figure in the various senior positions he held. Of late he has been a trenchant critic of the BBC and, crucially, of the licence fee. He has also backed privatisation of Channel 4.

The government had wanted Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor, to do the job; but he pulled out of the race with a letter to The Times.

For all his maverick streak, that context makes this Conservative peer a political appointment at an independent regulator. Precisely how much power he will have to achieve political ends is unclear. The BBC governs itself, largely. Ofcom has a respected Chief Executive in Melanie Dawes. Reforming Ofcom's remit may require primary legislation.

No doubt Grade will be energetic, with a zeal for reform; but he will need political cover for any big changes he envisages.

Lord Grade accepted the post of chief executive of Channel 4 in 1988, where he helped to secure the rights to hit US shows like Friends and ER.

After leaving the channel in 1997, he worked for First Leisure, which operated nightclubs, bars and health and fitness clubs, before moving on to Pinewood and Shepperton film studios and taking a seat on the board of the Millennium Dome project.

He became chairman of the BBC in 2004, before heading up ITV in 2006 for three years.

He also became a Conservative peer in 2011.

Ofcom has wide-ranging powers over television, radio, telecoms and postal services, dealing with licensing, complaints and much else besides.

RT's coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine had been under investigation by Ofcom, and the channel had already disappeared from UK screens. In response, RT, formerly named Russia Today, called Ofcom "a tool of the government".

And late last year, Ofcom confirmed that BBC Three was to return as a TV channel in February 2022 - six years after it moved online.

Last November, former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre pulled out of the contest to become the next chair of Ofcom.

In a letter to the Times, he said he was not going to reapply for the role, after his initial application was rejected by a recruitment panel.

The process was then re-run after the initial interviews failed to settle on a candidate.

But Dacre said he had decided to take up an "exciting new job in the private sector" instead.