Alasdair Milne

Alasdair Milne worked at the BBC for 34 years and rose through the ranks to achieve the top job as Director-General. He was educated at Winchester College and Oxford University. He joined the BBC as a general trainee and worked on the current affairs series Tonight (1957), the groundbreaking satire That Was the Week That Was (1962) and The Great War (1964). He later became Controller of BBC Scotland and in the 1970s he served as BBC Director of Programmes and Managing Director of BBC Television. During this period he banned the controversial Dennis Potter play Brimstone and Treacle (1976) and oversaw the acclaimed Shakespeare productions on BBC Two. In 1982 he replaced Ian Trethowan as Director-General of the BBC. Milne's tenure lasted for five difficult years which saw the BBC under increasing pressure from Margaret Thatcher's government over programmes such as the Nationwide (1969) general election special with the prime minister in 1983, in which she was questioned by a member of the public over the sinking of the General Belgrano in the Falklands War, the libel action brought by Conservative MPs regarding the Panorama (1953) episode "Maggie's Militant Tendency", broadcast in 1984, the Real Lives interview with Martin McGuinness in 1985, the BBC's coverage of the United States' bombing of Libya and the Secret Society programme about the Zircon spy satellite. In January 1987, Milne was forced to resign by the BBC's Board of Governors, which brought an unhappy end to a long career at the BBC.