Greg Dyke

(2000-2004) Director-General of the BBC.

On January 29th 2000, I became the BBC's 13th Director-General and the first who had been to neither a public school nor Oxbridge. I was also the first in peacetime who had never worked for the BBC. But by the end of my first week I woke up deeply depressed. I couldn't believe how bereaucratic the whole place was. The worst point had been getting into my car one evening and finding a pile of papers more than a foot high on the back seat. This was my reading for tomorrow.