E101: Greg Dyke

Greg Dyke’s hugely successful career is defined by leading some of the UK’s biggest and most influential organisations, from the BBC, ITV, London Weekend Television, The FA and Brentford, the west London club he’s supported since childhood.

Sport has been a theme throughout his professional and personal life. When he was managing director of LWT in the early 1990s, Dyke arranged to meet representatives of five major English clubs to discuss a deal to award them a greater slice of media rights fees. This meeting is often cited as a catalyst for creation of the Premier League.

Famously, Dyke’s ITV was outbid by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky, and years later, when Dyke was a board director of Manchester United, his was the only vote against Murdoch’s proposed takeover of the club.

He became Director General of the BBC in 2000, with a reform agenda, famously describing the organisation as ‘hideously white’. In 2013, Dyke replaced David Bernstein as chairman of The FA, leaving in 2016, choosing not to seek re-election. We’re grateful to Nic Coward for putting us in touch.

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