Alan Yentob has the recognition he deserves in the tributes and obituaries from those who worked closely with him. His death has bestowed on him the clarity he fashioned in his television biographies of other remarkable figures.
And now he is gone, we can see what a gap he leaves. British cultural life has lost a great champion, the BBC a founding father.
His work was not always as appreciated as it has been at his death. I remember Yentob delivering the Charles Wheeler lecture in 2015, a passionate defence of the BBC licence fee and of public service broadcasting. Boris Johnson was in the audience and asked him the first question: “Who else could make something as brilliant, world leading and creatively significant as…” Yentob smiled, perhaps assuming a reference to Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation or David Attenborough on the natural world. Johnson finished his sentence with a smirk… “as Breaking Bad?”
The critical mob was at the gate, and the monopoly of the BBC was about to be trampled. But Yentob was steadfast and his recent arts series, Imagine, showed his absolute command of television based on integrity and curiosity.
If I had to think of two BBC figures ready to ignore fashionable tropes in favour of quality, I would go to Melvyn Bragg and Alan Yentob. Public service broadcasting values turn out to have been hugely successful in the marketplace, knowledge the magnet of the podcasting world. There is a public appetite for learning.
square NEWS Tributes paid to Alan Yentob after 'visionary' broadcaster dies aged 78
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Alan Yentob had a sense of public good which could make him seem naïve. He had faith in charismatic figures, including Camilla Batmanghelidjh, the CEO of Kids Company, which fell short of due diligence. When she first came under fire he tried to whip up support for her from all those who had previously feted her and was wounded when her public friends melted away.
She was vilified in a high court judgement, as were the trustees, including Yentob. But over time and especially since her death, her moral incandescence has prevailed over the failures of accountability. On the whole, she did much more good than harm. Yentob continued to believe in her. He was loyal to institutions and to friends.
Yentob did not quite fit into the determined journey of inclusivity at the BBC. He was metropolitan and he believed in the high arts. I tried to introduce more arts onto the Today programme and it encountered institutional antibodies. Elite sportsmen and women are somehow not elite in the sense the BBC fears, but the arts make some BBC folk nervous, unless it is Glastonbury. And yet, the Proms is the reputational flag ship of the BBC.
The BBC has to be public service, in order to survive the new commercial competition. It would be fitting for the BBC to celebrate one of their greatest champions by increasing their arts commissioning budget. Call it the Yentob legacy.
Sarah Sands is a former editor of Radio 4’s Today programme
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