The dramatic fall of Huw Edwards has to be a “wake-up call” to broadcasters and a turning point for the embattled BBC, experts have said in the run-up to the sentencing of the disgraced presenter on Monday.
With Edwards facing a potential prison term, senior leaders at the BBC are hoping the sentence will turn the page on a damaging crisis that has rocked the national broadcaster.
Experts have suggested there is “no way back” for Edwards, once seen as the anchor of the nation, after he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, having accessed indecent photographs of children as young as seven which were sent to him by a convicted paedophile.
“This isn’t a nadir for the BBC, but it needs to mark a turning point, one in which the best-paid presenters are not given special treatment and all staff feel empowered to speak up,” the media expert Jane Martinson said.
“The BBC needs a renewed focus on what it does best: public service journalism that provides trusted information for all of us.”
In the past year the 62-year-old presenter has faced a rapid and catastrophic fall from grace, having spent four decades at the BBC and being regarded as one of its most valuable and trusted assets.
It began with a story in the Sun in July 2023, less than a year after he announced Queen Elizabeth II’s death on the BBC. The newspaper disclosed his financial payments to a young person for sexually explicit images. Police concluded there was no evidence an offence had been committed, but other allegations about inappropriate messages sent to younger BBC employees followed. The BBC apologised this year, admitting it should have acted more quickly.
Edwards was still signed off work when he was arrested on an unrelated matter in November 2023, after his number was found in a phone by south Wales police.
The arrest – and Edwards’ subsequent guilty plea – sent shockwaves across the corporation, causing serious disquiet inside the organisation and resulting in hard questions being asked of its director general, Tim Davie.
Last week, during questioning by the House of Lords communications and digital committee, the BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, admitted the scandal had “damaged” the corporation’s reputation, while Davie said he would continue to pursue the £200,000 paid to Edwards after his arrest last year.
Edwards, who resigned in April, was among the BBC’s highest-paid stars in 2023-24, despite being suspended in July 2023 and arrested four months later. Davie defended that position but suggested the “standard practice” of continuing to pay suspended staff would be looked at: “It is absolutely right to look back and reflect,” he said.
Reflection is necessary but action to repair the damage done to the BBC is urgent and will require an agility rarely shown by the broadcaster, according to the crisis PR consultant Mark Borkowski.
“This has been really terrible for the BBC, because this is not something that is in the rear-view mirror,” he said. “They can repair the damage if they’re bold enough [but] the BBC is an organisation where people don’t make bold decisions, because they don’t want to lose their job.”
For Edwards, however, there was likely to be no return, he said. “You can return from a lot of things – but not this.”
Roger Bolton, a former BBC executive and the presenter of the podcast RogerBoltonsBeebwatch, said the increasingly casualised nature of work in television had exacerbated a power imbalance between “talent” and those working with them.
“There is an industry-wide problem, with young people in broadcasting being betrayed by older, more experienced and more powerful people,” he said. “I think this is a wake-up call to the industry, both about the conditions in which they work and the role of commissioning editors.”
It is not the only scandal to hit the BBC in recent months. In August the broadcaster sacked the Match of the Day presenter Jermaine Jenas, who admitted sending inappropriate messages to female colleagues. Earlier in the summer it launched an investigation into conduct and culture on its flagship show Strictly Come Dancing, after former contestants complained of being subjected to “inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying”.
In July, the BBC updated its guidelines on relationships in the workplace, warning staff that using “celebrity status” to influence people was an “abuse of power”, and in August it announced it would carry out an independent “culture review”.
Sources in the BBC said there was a profound awareness of the danger of power imbalances, which existed in all organisations.
“If you’re a media organisation that employs or uses high-profile individuals, then you’ve got to work even harder to get that right,” said one insider. “And the moment you think you’ve got it right, you have to start again.”
