Yes, he steadied the ship – but has left it weaker

ToNy HALL was having a pleasant time running the royal opera House in 2013 when he received the call to rescue the BBC, which had got itself into a mess. The Corporation had made the headlines, rather than reporting them, by refusing to run a programme investigating sex abuse allegations against Jimmy savile.

A BBC2 Newsnight report had also incorrectly implicated Tory grandee Lord McAlpine in another sex abuse scandal. George entwistle, director-general for less than two months, fell on his sword.

Now, nearly seven years after stepping into Mr entwistle’s little-worn shoes, Lord Hall is leaving the Beeb for what seems like an agreeable role chairing the National Gallery. some will say he deserves this final accolade at the end of a distinguished career.

Unquestionably, he managed to steady the ship after assuming control at the BBC. He is a smooth and clever man, and a seasoned administrator. simply surviving as director-general has been no mean feat.

He has some achievements to his name. on his watch the BBC has kept pace with technological innovation — for example in developing its generally admirable iPlayer.

But there is a strong argument that the Corporation in 2020 is fundamentally weaker than when he took over. Whoever succeeds him will inherit an in-tray bulging with mind-boggling problems significantly greater than those Lord Hall had to tackle.

These awesome difficulties are largely of Auntie’s — and Lord Hall’s — making. relations with government are as bad as they have been since the 1980s, and Boris Johnson has been wondering whether the licence fee should be junked. It has also been embroiled in a row over its gender pay gap.

Meanwhile, a revolution is taking place which calls into question the BBC’s longterm survival. The young are barely watching television in its traditional form. New streaming services supplied by Netflix and Amazon are building up vast audiences.

CONSIDER this. When Lord Hall got his feet under the desk, Netflix was tentatively beginning to expand into the UK. Now some 12 million British households subscribe to its streaming service.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Beeb has been fixated by its own selfgenerated controversies, while an upheaval has been taking place which will transform the way in which television is watched.

The first self-inflicted wound concerns the pay gap between the salaries of male and female ‘stars’. When the Government insisted these salaries be published, Lord Hall said it would be a ‘poacher’s charter’, with commercial channels offering BBC ‘talent’ more money.

That didn’t happen. What was revealed, however, is that the bloated bureaucracy of the BBC was often paying men much more than women for similar or identical jobs.

For example, on radio 4’ s Today programme John Humphrys earned up to £649,999 a year (the BBC released the figures in bands rather than giving precise amounts), which included his role on Mastermind. Nick robinson received up to £299,999. But the able and experienced sarah Montague was paid less than £150,000.

Not surprisingly, she went ballistic and, after a long battle, has just been awarded £400,000 in compensation. Presenter samira Ahmed is in line for £700,000 back pay after recently winning a case against the BBC for being short- changed in comparison to Jeremy Vine for comparable work.

The BBC faces a bill running into millions for claims by other female staff. It is all licence payers’ money, of course. Many will think that the real problem was not that women were paid too little, but that men were paid too much by the standards of public service. It’s perfectly true Lord Hall didn’t create this problem, but he was slow to react when it blew up. one consequence, in which he has colluded, is that almost every plum job that comes up at the BBC now has to go to a woman.

Another black mark is the BBC’s decision to deprive nearly four million pensioners aged over 75 of a free TV licence. only the poorest will continue to receive support, leaving many elderly people under financial pressure.

Here, the blame should be shared with George osborne who, in 2015, demanded that the BBC should accept responsibility for the subsidy. But if the then Chancellor was at fault in making the Corporation take on welfare provision, Lord Hall was wrong to have been so accommodating.

At a time when the salaries of senior BBC managers have been soaring much faster than the rate of inflation, Auntie is playing the role of scrooge. For example, director of content Charlotte Moore, spoken of as a possible successor to Lord Hall, was awarded a 13.8 per cent increase to £370,000.

In terms of public relations, it is surely little short of a disaster for the Beeb to be seen hammering elderly people who form the core of its most loyal audience.

With such problems on his plate, you might think the last thing Lord Hall needs is a bust-up with the new Tory administration. But that is exactly what he has got.

Mr Johnson and his advisers believe the Conservatives were hard done by during the election campaign. Perish the thought! When did they last get a fair crack of the whip? The 1959 election?

one example of anti-Tory bias was Andrew Neil’s three-minute broadcast tirade against Mr Johnson for not turning up to be interviewed by him. The irony is that the usually admirable

Mr Neil is virtually Auntie’s only right-wing interviewer.

Perhaps somewhat peevishly, ministers are refusing to go on the Today programme or BBC2’s Newsnight. More worrying for the Beeb are leaks that No 10 may decriminalise the non-payment of the licence fee, which could lead to a collapse in its revenue.

I believe such behaviour would be rather sneaky of the Government. In 2016, an extension of the licence fee was agreed until 2027, which will be reviewed in 2022. Mr Johnson shouldn’t pull the plug on that.

BUTthe next director-general must confront the issue of antiTory bias. It’s admittedly difficult because, although nominally editor-in-chief, the director-general can’t easily control thousands of overwhelmingly Left- of- Centre journalists. Lord Hall certainly hasn’t.

on every front, his successor should be less hidebound. Let’s face it: the licence fee is a relic of the analogue age when there was originally only one station, and then a handful.

In a world of Netflix, Amazon and sky (much richer now it is American-owned), it’s increasingly hard to justify a funding model that imposes on all owners of televisions, regardless of whether they watch the BBC, the legal obligation to pay an annual charge that now stands at £154.50.

Lord Hall has clung to the licence fee, as he tended to cling to many familiar things. But it can’t last for ever. A subscription service is eminently feasible, as former BBC director-general Mark Thompson conceded over the weekend.

oh, for a new director-general who is not a BBC apparatchik — someone with vision and commercial nous, who realises that Auntie must take off her blindfold.

And someone, too, who will fight to preserve those things the Beeb does better than anyone else. To paraphrase Lampedusa’s great novel The Leopard, the BBC must change if it is to stay largely the same.