Roger Mosey has now taken on this 'troubleshooting' role, with the title of editorial director. Others have had different titles. Mark Byford, who most recently held this responsibility, was also deputy director general. It has been suggested that if he had still been in the job, the corporation's recent scandals might have been lessened or even avoided.

Mr Mosey will not be deputy director general - he is not even on the BBC's executive board, though he will attend its meetings - but he is hugely experienced and will play a powerful and crucial role in BBC decision-making.

He resigned abruptly in December, telling staff that News International wanted to appoint a new editor, so he'd offered his resignation to Rupert Murdoch. There was speculation that the company wanted to merge The Times and the Sunday Times, but this was blocked by The Times's independent directors.

Harding won plaudits for The Times' robust coverage of the phone hacking scandal but had to apologise to the Leveson inquiry over the alleged hacking of emails by one of his own journalists. He led The Times' move into digital publishing, charging readers to access its online site, and also had to implement cuts at the paper. He also turned down the chance to break the MPs' expenses scandal, telling the Leveson inquiry he didn't want to pay for stolen goods. He said 'hindsight is a wonderful thing' and he now believed there would have been a 'public interest' defence. That's all valuable experience for his new role at the BBC.

The job is regarded as particularly important following criticisms of the BBC's handling of two Newsnight crises - one over the failure to broadcast an investigation into allegations against Jimmy Savile and a subsequent programme that led Lord McAlpine to be wrongly implicated in claims of child abuse.

Ahead of publication, newspapers reported that Jeremy Paxman and Lord McAlpine were both upset that the full evidence was not to be revealed. But another paper said the BBC would be "engulfed" in a mountain of "deeply unedifying" material.

The BBC is in a no-win position. If some of the evidence does prove explosive, it will grab the headlines. If it doesn't, the "censorship" will become the story.

So why is any of it being withheld? Lord Patten always said some material would be redacted for legal reasons. The BBC says these include protecting the confidentiality of sources or victims of Jimmy Savile, and avoiding the risk of libel actions.

It denies claims that it simply wants to avoid further embarrassing its managers, but that suspicion remains.

BBC transcripts: Who said what

Many more posts are due to close under the Delivering Quality First (DQF) programme, following the freezing of the licence fee and the need to pay for the World Service.

BBC spending is due to be cut by 20% over four years to April 2017. Bectu, the media and entertainment union, which is not on strike, has written to Lord Hall on behalf of all the BBC unions.

It is seeking a moratorium on compulsory redundancies while the new director general makes his own assessment of DQF.

With the NUJ and BBC management still far apart, Lord Hall's response could set the tone for all his future dealings with BBC staff.

Ben Cooper says he's "delighted" with the station's result - even though the Press Association reported that it was the breakfast show's lowest audience for seven years. This is not as contrary as it might seem. Cooper was specifically asked by the BBC Trust, which regulates the Corporation, to find a younger audience for Radio 1.

Grimshaw has added almost a quarter of a million 15-24 year-old listeners to the breakfast slot and the average age of the station has dropped to 32, from 33 in the last quarter. It seems some older listeners have switched to Chris Evans on Radio 2, helping that network attract a record audience of over 15 million listeners a week.

The climax came at the end of November, when Lord Justice Leveson published his 2,000-page report in the heart of Westminster. A few days later Prime Minister David Cameron summoned national newspaper editors to Downing Street, demanding urgent action.

"I've told them that they have to produce a tough, independent regulatory system rapidly and they've got to do it in a way that absolutely meets the requirements of Lord Justice Leveson's report," he told the BBC on 4 December.

"That means million-pound fines, proper investigation of complaints, prominent apologies - and they know, because I've told them, that the clock is ticking for this to be sorted out."

Eight weeks on, publishers and politicians are still grappling - in separate discussion groups - for a solution that will command public confidence.

They say the devil is in the detail. What carrots and sticks can be used to encourage publishers to join - and what if they don't? How do you appoint the people who will appoint the board of the new regulator, to make sure it's independent of government and newspapers?

Who will be on the so-called "recognition body" that will check the system is working? And do you need a law to make sure publishers comply?

Hacked Off, which represents victims of press harassment, says that you do - and claims editors and politicians are watering Leveson down, behind closed doors.

Its chairman, Hugh Tomlinson QC, told last week's Oxford Media Convention that a balance must be struck between the media's right to investigate, and hold politicians to account, and the public's right to privacy and freedom from harassment.

"The system that we've had to date has manifestly failed to do that," he said. "And my take on it is that it is impossible to imagine a situation where the British print media will voluntarily move to a position where some proper balance is achieved."

The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Hunt, says that he's leading the industry's efforts to come up with a tough, new system - and the proprietors have all told him they'll sign up.

Facing fierce questioning in Oxford, he said the industry was making good progress but needed time to button down all the details.

"On the tenth of January, I had 93 people in my law office in the City - publishers, editors - and they all agreed with the general thrust of what I'm talking about - a Leveson-compliant, new regulatory body" he said. "Just give me a chance to set it up."

Despite this "general" agreement, it isn't clear exactly what the publishers and editors have agreed to, as Roy Greenslade pointed out on MediaGuardian after the meeting.

Meanwhile cross-party talks continue at Westminster, over whether a law is needed, and if so what form it should take.

When the report was published, Mr Cameron swiftly rejected Lord Justice Leveson's proposal that the new system must be underpinned by statute. By doing so, the Daily Mail said, he had "refused to undermine 300 years of Press freedom".

Other parties supported the Leveson plan. Several draft bills are doing the rounds, as well as a government plan - put forward by Mr Cameron's policy adviser Oliver Letwin - to underpin the regulator's recognition body by a Royal Charter.

In a House of Lords debate in January, this was opposed by the former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Fowler.

The deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman told the Oxford Media Convention that she too was sceptical about a Royal Charter and favoured a statute.

"While the statutory route is straightforward, the royal charter route is anything but," she said. "It is untried and untested and we are unpersuaded that it can do the job which Leveson proposes."

With politicians and publishers still talking, Lord Hunt wants the new press regulator up and running by 1 July. It seems the clock will be ticking for some time to come.

Lord Justice Leveson not only recommends statutory 'underpinning' for a new independent system of press regulation - rejecting the industry's own proposal for a new body as "not going nearly far enough" to demonstrate independence from publishers.

He also delivers withering verdicts on the behaviour of many journalists and editors, "wholly rejecting" the suggestion that these are "aberrations and do not reflect on the culture, practices or ethics of the press as a whole"

He says parts of the press acted as if its own code simply did not exist and "wreaked havoc" with the lives of innocent people. Ordinary members of the public, caught up in tragic events, had their experiences "made much much worse by press behaviour that, at times, can only be called outrageous".

He goes on: "There has been a recklessness in prioritising sensational stories, almost irrespective of the harm that the stories may cause and the rights of those who would be affected, like the Dowlers, the McCanns and Abigail Witchalls."

Lord Justice Leveson is particularly critical of the publishers of the News of the World, over their response to the conviction of the paper's royal correspondent for hacking into phone messages.

He writes: "Most corporate entities would be appalled that employees were involved in the commission of crime in order to further their business. Not so at the News of the World. When the police sought to execute a warrant, they were confronted and driven off by the staff of the newspaper."

But it wasn't only the News of the World that behaved unethically, he says: "Too many stories in too many newspapers were the subject of complaints from too many people, with too little in the way of titles taking responsibility or considering the consequences for the individuals involved."

There had been a "reckless disregard for accuracy."

So how does he propose it should be put right?

Lord Justice Leveson says the Press Complaints Commission has failed and must be replaced. Newspapers should not be allowed "to mark their own homework".

He says: "The press needs to establish a new regulatory body, which is truly independent of industry leaders and of government and politicians. It must promote high standards of journalism and protect both the public interest and the rights of individuals. The chair and other members of the body must be independent and appointed by a fair and open process."

He says the new body would handle complaints and there could be sanctions for papers that broke the code, including the power to levy fines of up to 1% of a paper's turnover, to a maximum of £1m

But - and this is where his proposal will be opposed by many newspapers - he also says it must be set up by law: "There should be legislation to underpin the independent self-regulatory system."

He says the new law would enshrine for the first time a legal duty on the government to protect the freedom of the press, and provide an independent process to recognise the new self-regulatory body.

In the "regrettable event" that any major publisher refused to join such a scheme, he suggests that one option would be for Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, to act as a backstop regulator, though he does not recommend this.

Lord Justice Leveson insists that "this is not, and cannot be characterised, as statutory regulation of the press".

But one newspaper senior executive I've spoken to says "this is sophistry".

The press will continue to oppose the state having any role in its regulation. This is where the political battle lines will now be drawn.

For well over two and a half hours, Lord Patten and the acting director general Tim Davie faced searching, sometimes aggressive, questioning from MPs.

Both handled it much better than the hapless George Entwistle whose weak performance a month ago sowed the seeds of his downfall.

Once again Philip Davies led the attack, at one stage accusing Lord Patten of spending a fortune on headhunters to hire Mr Entwistle and then another fortune getting rid of him. Shouldn't he resign?

Lord Patten, who had already crossed swords with Mr Davies, said "I'm not sure this Socratic dialogue with you is getting us very far" but eventually conceded his share of the responsibility.

The BBC pair received this accolade on Twitter from committee member Ben Bradshaw: "Patten a class act, Tim Davie acting BBC DG displayed reassuring grip."

That is why BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten approached Tony Hall to be the new BBC director general without going through the normal recruitment process, and why Lord Hall of Birkenhead - to give him his proper title - accepted the offer to return to the corporation, even though he'd not applied for the job earlier in the year.

Lord Patten has revealed that he talked to Lord Hall about the requirements of the post, before George Entwistle was appointed as director general in the summer. At that stage, the head of the Royal Opera House made it clear he would not apply because he was also tied up running the Cultural Olympiad, and, at 61, he also felt it was a job for someone younger.

But as the BBC faced one of its worst ever crises, with the loss of its new director general, Tony Hall quickly emerged as the clear favourite for the task of stabilising the corporation and restoring credibility both to its news and its management.

Widely credited with helping turn round the Royal Opera House, which itself was in crisis before he joined as chief executive in 2001, Tony Hall had also worked at the BBC for many years, latterly as head of news, when it launched Radio 5 live, the BBC News website and its TV News Channel.

He was seen, in Lord Patten's words, as an outsider - after 11 years at the Opera House - and an insider who already knew the ways of the BBC, after working there for almost 30 years.

When the call came, Lord Hall found it hard to refuse. At a news conference he explained: "I care passionately about the BBC, about what it can do, its programme makers and the impact we have in all sorts of different ways. It's one of those extraordinary organisations which is an absolutely essential part of the UK, of Britain, of who we are, but also has this incredible impact around the world too."

With few exceptions, his appointment has been greeted with enthusiasm.

But that doesn't diminish the enormous task that faces him.

To start with there is the immediate fallout from the two separate BBC crises over Newsnight investigations into child abuse.

Disciplinary proceedings have begun against some of those involved in approving the broadcast that led to the former Conservative Party treasurer Lord McAlpine being wrongly linked to child abuse. It remains to be seen how those will be resolved - and the full report into what went wrong will then be published, possibly doing further damage to the reputation of BBC News.

Meanwhile, the Pollard Review is hearing evidence about how the earlier Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile was shelved, while Christmas tributes to the star went ahead. That report is expected early in December, and it could cause more damage to the corporation's reputation.

The BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, has stepped aside while the report is prepared, and though she expects to be reinstated when it is published, her absence further weakens a BBC management board that already contains an acting director general, an acting director of television (or Vision, as it's called), and an acting director of radio (or Audio & Music).

The chief operating officer was made redundant last month and two other senior executives - the chief finance officer and the chief executive of BBC Worldwide - are leaving the corporation. Tony Hall must build almost a completely new management team.

Dozens of other executives have left the BBC in the past two years, as it set out to reduce its senior management pay bill by 20% - in response to what Lord Patten called the "toxic" issue of high executive pay at the corporation. He now says he wants a radical overhaul of the BBC's structure and management.

If the new director general needed a reminder that the pay issue has not gone away, it came on the morning he was being appointed.

Just as the BBC Trustees were endorsing Tony Hall's appointment, one of their number, Anthony Fry, was being roasted by members of the House of Commons public accounts committee, furious at the generosity of BBC's executive pay-offs.

The MPs were incredulous at the trust's decision not just to pay Mr Entwistle £450,000, twice his legal entitlement - but also his legal fees, a year's private health insurance, and £10,000 for PR advice.

Nor could they believe that the chief operating officer Caroline Thomson, who was made redundant after she failed to get the top job, received an even bigger pay-off. Tony Hall will have to build bridges with MPs if he's to restore the BBC's reputation and end its current crisis.

And there are other challenges.

The budget cuts being implemented following the last licence fee settlement are still working their way through the system, and will soon have more of an impact on audiences.

Beyond that, the BBC must start to negotiate a new charter and the next licence fee settlement with the government.

And it must also face up to further revelations from the scandal that started the whole crisis - the accusations of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile.

The Dame Janet Smith Review, which is examining the culture and practices within the BBC during Savile's time, has just appealed for witnesses, including BBC staff and executives who may have known what was going on.

Tony Hall is going to have his hands full for some years to come.

He is an outsider - as Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, said he wanted - but he also worked at the BBC for many years, latterly as director of BBC News, where he launched Radio 5 live and the BBC News Channel.

He is credited with helping turn round the Royal Opera House, which had been in crisis before he joined as chief executive, and also the Cultural Olympiad, which had been in similar difficulties.

Lord Patten said his experience as a former BBC journalist would prove invaluable as the BBC looked to rebuild its reputation in this area.

In 2006, the Daily Mail & General Trust actually turned down a £1bn offer for Northcliffe Media - but that was before the full impact of the internet and the credit crunch hit home, slashing readership and advertising income.

Years later, DMGT has finally sold its regional titles for £53m and a 39% stake in Local World. This is an ambitious new venture to try to revive the ailing sector, with a strong team at the top.

It's led by David Montgomery, the former head of Mirror Group Newspapers, and Steve Auckland, who ran the successful Metro free newspaper business before becoming chief executive of Northcliffe.

But it is still only the fourth-biggest company in the sector, so it will have to grow a good deal before it can make a real impact.

They may want to be paid more than is politically acceptable, given the fuss over George Entwistle's £450,000 salary and pay-off.

It may take longer for an outsider to take up the post, if they are in a significant job already.

The level of public scrutiny is higher than most other jobs, as Mr Entwistle found out in his 54 days in the post.

And, unless they've worked at the BBC before, it is likely to take them a long time to find their way around its labyrinthine corporate structure.

It is often forgotten that Greg Dyke, the last outsider to be appointed, joined the BBC five months before he took over - as director general designate - so he could learn the ropes.

All that points to an outsider who has worked at the BBC before.

Candidates could include Ed Richards, the chief executive of Ofcom, who was a candidate last time and a former controller of strategy at the BBC; Tony Hall (Lord Hall of Birkenhead), chief executive of the Royal Opera House and a former director of BBC News; and Sophie Turner-Laing, managing director for entertainment and news at BSkyB, who was once acting director of television at the BBC.

Then there is Caroline Thomson. Formerly chief operating officer at the BBC, she was on the final shortlist this year only to see her job disappear when George Entwistle restructured the corporation in September.

He said it was the honourable thing to do after a BBC Newsnight film alleged child abuse by an unnamed Conservative politician - which was proved to be unfounded.

Coming on top of the Jimmy Savile crisis, which was prompted partly by the fact that Newsnight had shelved an earlier investigation into allegations of child abuse, this was particularly damaging to the BBC.

But this was also about the handling of the crisis. Last month, Mr Entwistle was accused by MPs of showing "an extraordinary lack of curiosity" over the Jimmy Savile affair and they told him to "get a grip".

On Saturday in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said he knew nothing in advance about the Newsnight broadcast nor had he seen a newspaper report revealing Lord McAlpine may have been wrongly accused.

MPs, former editors and broadcasting executives were unimpressed and so, I understand, were members of the BBC Trust.

On Sunday, the job of acting director-general will be taken by Tim Davie, who's been running the radio side of the BBC but who has no direct journalistic experience.

The BBC still faces very serious questions, not just about its journalism but about how the organisation is run.

This crisis - one of the most serious in the BBC's history - is not yet over.

This second episode is even more damaging than the first.

Not only is the corporation facing legal action from Lord McAlpine, it must also answer serious questions about how the report came to be broadcast, without its allegations being put to Lord McAlpine (even though the programme itself did not name him), or his photograph being checked with his accuser.

Director general George Entwistle was accused by MPs of showing "an extraordinary lack of curiosity" over the Savile affair - they told him to "take a grip".

Now he has admitted he knew nothing about the second Newsnight broadcast before it went out, or the first newspaper report revealing that Lord McAlpine may have been wrongly accused.

It's damaging not just for Newsnight and for the reputation of BBC News - but for the BBC as a whole.

When George Entwistle first volunteered to answer questions from the Culture Media & Sport committee about the Jimmy Savile scandal, it seemed a good idea.

By showing he had nothing to hide, it was hoped the new BBC director general could regain the initiative, countering claims he'd been slow to react when the allegations against Jimmy Savile first emerged.

That initiative seems to have backfired in spectacular fashion, if MPs' reactions and the subsequent morning headlines are any guide.

"Baffled Bumbling Clueless - BBC chief humiliated" is The Sun's front-page splash headline.

"Get a grip, Mr Entwistle, MPs tell the DG" reports the Daily Mail.

"It was a busy lunch" is the Independent's headline, quoting Mr Entwistle's explanation for what the committee chairman John Whittingdale called his "extraordinary lack of curiosity" in not asking more questions.

The paper goes on: "Director general stuns MPs with excuse for his ignorance over Savile investigation, blames his colleagues - and confirms nine more claims of sexual abuse at BBC."

Perhaps most wounding of all was the headline on Channel 4 News, which has added to the nightly discomfort of its old rival Newsnight with a string of further revelations.

"Is Auntie a laughing stock?" it asked, over pictures showing laughter in the committee room, as the Conservative MP Philip Davies mockingly scored another point off the director general.

Following the session, the culture secretary Maria Miller wrote to BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten saying "very real concerns" were now being raised about public trust in the BBC.

He responded with what some saw as a thinly-veiled warning to the minister: "I know that you will not want to give any impression that you are questioning the independence of the BBC."

In some ways, the new director general was unlucky.

Just five weeks into his new job, after a minimal honeymoon period, he might have hoped the committee would cut him some slack.

He had set up two inquiries into the Savile allegations, headed by clearly independent figures. He had formed a good working relationship with the Metropolitan Police, who had asked him to delay launching any BBC enquiry until they had got further with their own investigations.

With his actions supported by the BBC Trust and its chairman Lord Patten, Mr Entwistle believed he had done the right things and could demonstrate he was taking a grip.

Those hopes were dashed on Monday morning when he was forced to admit that he and other senior figures had misled the public over the reasons for dropping its Newsnight investigation.

The BBC said a blog post written by Newsnight editor Peter Rippon defending his decision was "inaccurate or incomplete in some respects", leading David Cameron to say the BBC had "effectively changed its story".

That evening, the BBC's failings over Newsnight were further exposed by one of its own programmes, Panorama - hours before its director general's appearance in front of the Culture Committee.

Select committees can sometimes resemble a 21st Century bear-pit, where MPs delight in scoring points over public servants they want to take down a peg or two - although the Culture Committee is by no means the most aggressive.

Soon Mr Davies had the director general on the run, with a series of quick-fire questions about who at the BBC had "bussed in" vulnerable girls to Top of the Pops and allowed them access to the stars' dressing rooms.

Mr Entwistle argued in vain that the Panorama programme - far from showing a BBC in chaos, as some had suggested - demonstrated the independence of the BBC's journalism, freely holding its bosses to account.

He insisted he had deliberately not asked more questions about the Newsnight investigation so as to protect BBC journalists from improper managerial pressure.

Here he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't: either he was interfering or he was lacking in curiosity.

Mr Entwistle told the MPs that after watching the Panorama programme he firmly believed the investigation should have been allowed to continue, even if Mr Rippon thought it was not yet ready for transmission.

He revealed he had personally asked the editor to "step aside" from his job because of the inaccuracies in his blog, which had set out the "editorial reasons" for halting the Savile investigation.

Was he angry at being let down by his subordinate, asked Damian Collins MP? No, he was "disappointed".

The MPs delivered no killer blow - the burst of laughter was the most uncomfortable moment - but they had been looking for a clear signal that the director general had got a grip and made clear that they hadn't found it.

The New Statesman gave this verdict: "George Entwistle: A decent man out of his depth". It added: "The director general of the BBC came to the House of Commons to restore his reputation over the Jimmy Savile scandal - and failed."

Mr Rippon has made no public response, but will give his side of the story to the independent review led by the former head of Sky News, Nick Pollard.

Now all eyes will be on that review, which has been asked to determine "whether there were any failings in the BBC's management of the Newsnight investigation".

It is being conducted as a matter of urgency - and it will not make comfortable reading.

Its world affairs editor John Simpson sparked headlines this morning when he said it was the biggest crisis he could remember in 50 years.

Some thought that over the top, pointing out that the corporation lost both its chairman and director-general after the Hutton Report in 2004.

But now things have got worse.

The BBC has had to admit there were errors in the Newsnight editor's explanation of why he dropped its Jimmy Savile investigation.

The one silver lining is that it's Panorama, one of the BBC's own news programmes, that has brought the errors to light.

But that may be small comfort for George Entwistle, as he faces MPs tomorrow to explain the BBC's handling of the crisis.

The BBC Trust chairman said the corporation had a lot of questions to answer and whoever carried out the report would have to command the trust of the whole nation.

He said the report would be published in full, though its scope and terms are yet to be decided.

Lord Patten has also written to the BBC's director general asking him to check that the corporation's current policies on child protection, sexual harassment, bullying and whistleblowing are fit for purpose - to make sure what he called the "cesspit" of allegations could not happen again.

But if George Entwistle hoped this would kick the issue into the long grass - as some have suggested - he may be out of luck.

This story has the potential to run and run, as the continuing newspaper and broadcast coverage has shown.

The unearthing by Channel 4 News of TV footage from 1974 showing Freddie Starr on Savile's show Clunk Click is the latest scoop to emerge, as journalists race to uncover new evidence about what went on at the BBC in the '70s, '80s and '90s.

It's unlikely to be the last.

Not only have all Savile's alleged victims been encouraged by the Corporation to tell their stories to the police, but Mr Entwistle has urged "any staff member past or present" who "knows anything they think might help" to come forward, as he pledged the BBC's full co-operation with the Met.

That is unlikely to curb the stream of allegations emerging in the media.

At the weekend, alongside more lurid claims in the tabloids about other celebrities and BBC employees, came a string of eye-witness accounts on the BBC's own programmes from well-known broadcasters, deploring the way women were treated in the 1980s.

On Radio 4's Today programme, the BBC 6 Music DJ Liz Kershaw said that in the 1980s she was routinely groped by a Radio 1 colleague while she was live on the air. She said Savile's behaviour was an "open secret" at the station, where the culture "was like walking into a rugby club locker room and very intimidating for a young woman".

On the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, TV and radio presenter Sandi Toksvig said she was groped on air 30 years ago by a "famous individual". She did not name them, or where she was working at the time, but said other staff thought it was funny.

On BBC One's Question Time, Janet Street-Porter said that when she became a BBC executive in 1987 she "was aware of the rumours about Jimmy Savile" and there was "definitely a culture in light entertainment of inappropriate sexual behaviour", though not necessarily with underage children.

Later, in the Daily Mail, she said the same attitudes prevailed at her previous employer, LWT. "In the male-dominated world of television and radio entertainment in the Seventies, Eighties and even Nineties, women were all-too-often regarded as something to have smutty fun with. If we complained, we were being silly."

Now the backlash has begun.

On Radio 5 Live, former Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith said he didn't recognise the culture described by Liz Kershaw and said what went on in the studios was just "mucking about".

He told Richard Bacon the "witch-hunt must stop" and accused Liz Kershaw of "smearing" other presenters by not naming the man who routinely assaulted her.

On the same programme, Jackie Brambles, who was at Radio 1 at the same time, told Bacon it was "more like a school common room than a rugby club."

Sandy Toksvig has now told the Guardian she was distressed that her comments had been used as "stick to beat the BBC with".

In a statement she said: "Whilst the recent manifold revelations regarding the abuse and mistreatment of women in broadcasting have focused on the BBC, I would like to clarify that I consider this a culture endemic across the whole of radio and television and is certainly not limited to the BBC."

The Daily Telegraph's radio critic Gillian Reynolds said she agreed with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas who suggested on Radio 4's Any Questions that it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Reynolds wrote: "I have little doubt that some of Savile's activities were appalling, probably even criminal. He said as much himself in his autobiography. I knew one of his Radio 1 producers, now dead, who was appalled by his behaviour and said so at the time.... But when, as here, the explosive combination of prurience and vengeance are let loose upon the airwaves, I tend to wonder for whose benefit."

But on its news pages, the Telegraph reported Channel Four's discovery of footage showing Freddie Starr on Savile's show.

It said his lawyer had released a statement saying the star had been "mistaken" when he denied meeting a woman who has accused him of molesting her, or appearing on the programme.

The statement went on: "However, this does not detract from the fact that Freddie vigorously denies the awful allegation that has been made by Karin Ward, which despite this footage is still totally unsupported and uncorroborated by any other evidence."

The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror put the same story on their front pages.

Meanwhile, the Guardian and other papers are pursuing the links between Savile and the Jersey care home scandal: "The former head of the Jersey child abuse investigation has said he now suspects that Sir Jimmy Savile was implicated in the Haut de la Garenne children's home abuse scandal," reported The Guardian.

Lenny Harper said he now had "no reason to doubt" that Savile was involved in indecent assault at the notorious Jersey children's home, despite there being insufficient evidence to question the Jim'll Fix It star when he was alive.

And there's still the question of who knew what, and when, about the BBC's Newsnight investigation, which was shelved last year, despite uncovering much of the material shown in last week's ITV documentary.

The Daily Mail said: "BBC director-general George Entwistle yesterday admitted knowing about the Newsnight Savile investigation when he ploughed ahead with eulogies showering tributes on the presenter. It came as he ordered a belated inquiry into the abuse scandal and offered an apology to Savile's victims."

The BBC has strongly denied that pressure was brought on Newsnight to drop the investigation. The programme's editor Peter Rippon insisted on the BBC Editors blog that it was his decision alone.

But like so many aspects of the Savile allegations, the story refuses to lie down.

The Tory MP Rob Wilson said the issues went much wider than criminality - they were about "a pretty rotten culture".