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John Birt, Baron Birt (born 10 December 1944) is a former Director-General of the BBC who was in the post from 1992 to 2000. After a successful career in commercial television, first at Granada Television and then at London Weekend Television, Birt was appointed Deputy Director-General of the BBC in 1987 for his current affairs expertise. The forced departure of Director-General Alasdair Milne following pressure from the Thatcher government〔Alasdair Milne, ''DG: The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster'', 1988〕 required someone at the top, preferably from outside the BBC, with editorial and production experience (Milne had been summarily replaced by Michael Checkland, an accountant). During his tenure as Director-General, Birt restructured the BBC, in the face of much internal opposition. However, others have credited him with saving the corporation from possible government sell-off, and say he properly equipped it to face the digital age. Birt was Strategic Advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2001 to 2005. Birt was appointed Chairman of CPA Global in 2015. ==Early life and commercial television career== John Birt was born in Liverpool, Lancashire to a Catholic father, a manager at the Firestone tyre company, and a Protestant mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic, and educated at the direct-grant grammar school St Mary's College, Liverpool and St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he received a third-class degree in engineering. From 1966 to 1971 Birt worked at Granada Television, where he devised and produced the magazine programme ''Nice Time'' before joining Granada's flagship documentary strand ''World in Action''. Here he persuaded Mick Jagger, who had just spent three nights in Brixton prison for possession of drugs, to participate in a broadcast conversation with the editor of ''The Times'' (William Rees-Mogg) and the Bishop of Woolwich (John A. T. Robinson), among others, for a programme hailed as a "dialogue between generations." Birt in 1969 became joint editor of ''World in Action'' with Gus McDonald. In 1971 Birt moved from Granada to London Weekend Television (LWT), where he was founding editor and executive producer of the current affairs programme ''Weekend World''. He became head of current affairs at LWT and, later, controller of features and current affairs. With ''Weekend World'' presenter Peter Jay, Birt contributed a series of three articles to ''The Times'' on the topic of television journalism. They argued that most television news and current affairs contained a "bias against understanding": pictures had taken precedence over analysis. Instead they advocated "a mission to explain." This style became known as “Birtism”. Makers of news and documentary programmes were required to outline their finished product in writing before setting out with the cameras. In the mid-1970s he took a break from LWT to produce David Frost's interviews with disgraced former US President Richard Nixon. In the 1977 interviews, watched by 45 million people, Nixon admitted his part in the scandal which had led to his resignation two years earlier. Birt returned to LWT as director of programmes in 1982. During this period he revived the career of his old friend, the Liverpool singer Cilla Black, who in due course became the highest paid female performer on UK television. Birt formed a close working relationship with his boss at LWT, Michael Grade, although this would later go sour when both worked at the BBC.〔John Birt,''The Harder Path'', 2002.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Birt, Baron Birt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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