Form Book 14

Media Monkey in The Guardian yesterday noted market moves in the 2012 DG Stakes for Ofcom chief executive Ed C Richards, cut from 12/1 to 6/1 by Ladbrokes. "They report new accounts being opened up in London and the home counties, purely to punt on the regulator in chief."  The money also altered Paddy Power's thinking, who made Ed even shorter, at 11/4.

Ed at Ofcom has had his moments with the BBC. He had a stand-up with Greg Dyke, post-Hutton, and Greg described him as that "jumped-up Millbank oik".  Ed rubbed up Mark Thompson the wrong way over "top-slicing" the licence fee. He believes the BBC should reveal how much it pays top talent. He recently drew Lord Leveson's attention to the £150k fine Ofcom imposed on the BBC after the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Sachsgate broadcasts - when the BBC had clearly not recognised the error of their ways, and needed to surrender some more licence-fees to the regulator.

Ed comes via Portsmouth Grammar School and the LSE. At Portsmouth, he was apparently "an outstanding sportsman, Chairman of the Sixth Form Council, a highly effective prefect, a ferocious debater and founder and bass guitarist of the School Rock Band".  In 2010 he entertained fellow Old Portmuthians with a lecture and slide show about Ed C Richards - the minutes say it was a triumph.

No-one.. could possibly have anticipated the brilliance of the next 2+ hours! Notably upstaging David Cameron, Ed, without any notes or autocue but with tremendous verve and enthusiasm and total fluency, addressed us for two hours in accompaniment to the power-point outline of his meteoric career in politics and the media. As the Chief Executive of Ofcom, Ed has been hailed by the business community as "the most important figure in the UK radio and TV sector and in the fixed-line and mobile telecommunications industries" but to achieve such elevation in a mere 22 years entailed considerable success in many career fields. In this way the audience was treated to fascinating glimpses of a number of different career experiences, all of them seen from the top and all of them in themselves worthy of an individual lecture !


Real form book students may like to contrast Ed's performance at the Edinburgh TV Festival, in 2009, when he appears to send his interlocutor (and potential rival candidate) Peter Fincham to sleep.


One stepping stone in shy Ed's meteoric rise was the BBC itself, where he ran strategy under John Birt.  But his history in programme-making is short - a spell as researcher at Diverse Productions, with no obvious programme credits. His wife, Delyth, has more experience on-air, from a spell as reporter for the World at One and PM. She went on to become a member of the Welsh Assembly, and now runs the London operations of the charity "Dressing For Success".

Do you need programme-making experience to be DG ?  Today's Guardian editorial, which has the imprint of Rusbridger, is definite - only a programme-maker schooled in journalism, like Mr Thompson, should be entrusted with the responsibilities of running the BBC.