The British Broadcasting Corp. named Tony Hall, the head of the Royal Opera House who worked at the BBC for 28 years, as the next director general as it tries to recover from child sex-abuse scandals.
Hall replaces George Entwistle, who quit this month after a Nov. 2 BBC “Newsnight” program wrongly implied that a UK politician had molested a boy. Hall starts in early March and will be paid $718,000 a year, the same salary as Entwistle, the BBC Trust said yesterday.
“As an ex-BBC man he understands how the corporation’s culture and behavior make it, at its best, the greatest broadcaster in the world,” BBC Trust Chairman Chris Patten said .
Hall is rejoining the London-based BBC as the broadcaster is also investigating its missteps in handling allegations that television host Jimmy Savile, who died last year, may have been involved in the abuse of more than 450 people.