Asked if there has been a "coup" by the BBC board against Tim Davie and Deborah Turness - an argument made by ex-Sun editor David Yelland earlier - Dinenage says the BBC is trying to "obfuscate what the issue is".

Davie did not stand down because the board asked him to, she says. He stood down because of an "editorial failure".

The BBC has "badly" responded to editorial crises across the summer, she adds, pointing to its Glastonbury coverage, Gaza documentary and Greg Wallace on Master Chef.

"The BBC just seem to have dropped the ball at every opportunity," she says. "And that's not a board-level problem, that's an institutional problem."

Image source, UK Parliament

We're now hearing from Culture, Media and Sport committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage, who says she is expecting a letter for BBC chair Samir Shah today, but that it has not yet arrived.

Last night's resignations were "avoidable", she says, adding she is "very sad" about Tim Davie stepping down.

She says Davie was an "effective leader" and a "great champion for public service media".

"But there is no escaping the fact he was very slow to act on this particular issue," she adds.

Mark Damazer now turns to other issues the BBC has been criticised for, including its handling of transgender topics and BBC Arabic's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

But he doesn't think the BBC's journalism has been one-sided.

"It is not the case that it is only one side that is complaining," he says. People sympathetic to the Palestinians' cause say the BBC hasn't been fair to them either, he adds.

"The notion that there is this widespread satisfied, smug, liberal, incompetent culture" which "pollutes and contaminates the BBC's journalism" is "wildly, wildly overblown", he says.

Mark Damazer, former controller of BBC Radio 4, says "year after year of crashing waves" against Tim Davie has "taken its toll".

"I'm very very sad about it," he tells the Today programme. "I think Tim's an outstanding director general."

He says he welcomes debate about the BBC's impartiality, but that it is "absolutely wrong" to say that the corporation is "systemically biased", adding that he does not agree with Sir Charles Moore.

The "overwhelming majority" of what the BBC does is "excellent, and it doesn't happen by accident", he adds. Impartiality is "centre" to the BBC's culture and it "largely succeeds" on this front.

We're now hearing from Conservative MP Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the Culture Committee in the House of Commons, and Mark Damazer, former controller of BBC Radio 4, on the Today programme.

We'll bring you key lines here, but you can also follow along by pressing watch live above.

The BBC is now "in chaos, rudderless and leaderless" and the situation has been left to get "completely out of hand", says Sir Craig Oliver.

The former BBC News controller, who was later communications director for David Cameron, says there is "an issue with the governance of the institution".

In times of crisis, the BBC's chairman needs to "step in" to protect the corporation, he tells Radio 4's Today programme. In this case, Samir Shah has "not done that properly", Oliver says.

"We still do not know what the BBC story is about this around what happened here," he adds.

• As a reminder, we're expecting to see Samir Shah's response today in a statement to the Culture, Media and Sport committee.

In different parts of the political arena, patience with the BBC is wearing thinpublished at 08:04 GMT 10 November

08:04 GMT 10 November

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

There’s been no shortage of reaction from politicians of all stripes to Tim Davie’s resignation.

Many politicians, especially in government, will quickly become acquainted with whoever becomes his successor.

That’s because the BBC’s Royal Charter is up for renewal imminently.

The charter is the agreement with the government which sets out the BBC’s terms of operation.

The current one began on 1 January 2017 and expires on 31 December 2027.

Among other things, the charter sets out the funding model of the BBC, namely the licence fee, about which there are fundamental questions heading into the second quarter of the 21st Century.

Davie, on the BBC side, and Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, have both discussed different options for replacing the licence fee publicly.

More generally, both sides have been shaping up for this negotiation and honing their arguments for some time.

But the government will now be waiting to see if the new leadership of the BBC comes to have a different perspective on what they want out of the negotiation.

And all this at a time when patience with the BBC in different parts of the political arena is wearing thin, perhaps like never before.

Image source, PA Media

Roger Mosey is now asked whether the BBC needs restructuring - and how he would do this.

The problem for Tim Davie is that he is not a journalist, Mosey says. He comes from a marketing background.

He also didn't have a deputy director general - someone to "catch the flak" and take the blame if things go wrong.

This has meant a number of controversies have landed on Davie's desk, Mosey says - pointing to issues that have arisen on Strictly Come Dancing and Master Chef, as well as the latest Panorama scandal.

We're now hearing from Roger Mosey, former director of news at the BBC. He tells BBC Breakfast that he is "very sad" to see Tim Davie go.

But he says there was an "indefensible piece of journalism" in the Panorama programme. He adds that the BBC knew about it and seems to have been slow to respond.

There has been some internal politics too, Mosey suggests. He says the board is "divided" about "what it thinks about news and who should be running news".

He calls it a "terrible mess".

• As a reminder, Michael Prescott's memo says Panorama made it seem like Trump said: "We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore." In reality, says Prescott, the first part of Trump’s speech: "We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you," came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half - "and we fight. We fight like hell...." - came 54 minutes later.

Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, says the resignations will give the BBC "the chance to take impartiality seriously".

"It's always [reporting] from a sort of metropolitan left position. Absolutely consistently, that's how the bias is," he tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He says the issues have included "the most extraordinary degree of systemic bias, particularly in BBC Arabic" in coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

(That was one concern raised by former BBC editorial standards adviser Michael Prescott in his dossier - the dossier itself quotes BBC global director Jonathan Munro as saying: "While no service is perfect and all of us can make mistakes, we believe BBC Arabic delivers against (its) responsibilities with the vast majority of its reporting and analysis.")

Lord Moore also dismisses the suggestion of a "coup" by the BBC Board, which was made by former Sun editor David Yelland just before him on the Today programme.

"The absolutely key thing about the BBC for its survival, and why it matters, is its impartiality," Lord Moore says.

"And that is what Tim Davie announced, when he became director general, he would try to enforce, and which he didn't succeed in enforcing. And therefore he's gone.

"And if I may say so, I think that the way this has been covered this morning shows the problem you collectively have, which is that you're already trying to accuse people of coups and that sort of thing, rather than tell the listeners what this internal memo said and how serious the accusations in it are."

We're now hearing from David Yelland, former editor of the Sun and now a BBC presenter. He says the resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness are the result of a "coup" from the board.

(The BBC Board, led by Samir Shah, ensures "that the BBC delivers its mission and public purposes" - it includes Davie and Turness).

The board has "systematically undermined" Davie and his senior team for a long time, Yelland tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He claims elements of it have worked with hostile newspaper editors, a former prime minister, and enemies of public service broadcasting.

There is a reason the BBC is the "most trusted organisation in the world" and newspapers are not, he adds.

• You can read our media editor's analysis on the BBC board, and what led to Davie and Turness's resignations, here

Sir John Whittingdale, who was culture secretary under the Conservatives, says director general of the BBC is "one of the toughest jobs in broadcasting".

The corporation produces "thousands of hours of content" and "things go wrong", he tells BBC Breakfast.

What's different this time, he says, is that when a report raised concerns about these issues to the BBC board, "nothing happened".

(As our previous post said, former BBC adviser Michael Prescott says he wrote his memo in "despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light").

Even after Prescott's memo was published in the Telegraph, Whittingdale says the BBC "should have reacted far faster".

He adds that he's sorry Tim Davie has resigned, describing him as a "decent man who's doing an incredibly hard job".

"But I think there have been so many failures and actually the fact that nothing was done is why he and Deborah Turness felt it necessary to resign."

Image source, Reuters

The resignation of BBC director general Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness follows a dossier written by Michael Prescott, and sent to the BBC board.

Prescott was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board for three years, before leaving in June.

The wide-ranging dossier was leaked to the Daily Telegraph. In it, Prescott says:

"One week before polling day [in 2024], the BBC aired an hour-long Panorama special called: Trump: A Second Chance?

"I watched the programme and found it to be neither balanced nor impartial – it seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance...

"I raised my concerns at the EGSC and David Grossman [the senior editorial adviser to the committee] was asked to review the programme.

"He concluded the main contributors to the documentary were heavily weighted against Trump, with just one supporter against ten who questioned his fitness for office.

"Worse still, David highlighted alarming concerns about how Panorama had edited Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol Hill riot.

"Examining the charge that Trump had incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it turned out that Panorama had spliced together two clips from separate parts of his speech.

"This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers."

Prescott's dossier also raised concerns about other areas of BBC output - including coverage of trans issues, and the war in Gaza.

In the introduction to his dossier, Prescott says: "What motivated me to prepare this note is despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light.

"On no other occasion in my professional life have I witnessed what I did at the BBC with regard to how management dealt with (or failed to deal with) serious recurrent problems."

Katie Razzall
Culture and Media editor

Image source, Reuters

This is seismic. To lose both the director general and the CEO of BBC News at the same time is unprecedented. It's an extraordinary moment in the history of the BBC.

It can't be underestimated.

I can't help thinking there is more to this than meets the eye. And there is another story emerging about the functionality and make up of the BBC Board and its role in what has happened.

It appears there has been a rift between the Board and the news division with some arguing the BBC has, for too long, failed to address institutional bias inside the BBC and others questioning whether what's unfolded has been an orchestrated - and politicised - campaign against the corporation which has claimed two big scalps.

• Read more of the analysis here.

The resignations of Davie and Turness are splashed across the front pages of Monday's papers.

"BBC bosses quit in disgrace" is the Daily Mail’s take, while the Daily Mirror leads with "crisis at the Beeb".

The Daily Telegraph describes the double resignations as the BBC's "biggest crisis in more than a decade".

The paper had originally published the leaked internal memo that accused the broadcaster of misleadingly editing a speech by Donald Trump in a Panorama documentary.

The Times quotes BBC insiders describing Davie's departure as the result of "death by a thousand cuts".

On the next steps for the corporation, the Guardian says "now begins the hunt to fill two of the biggest roles in British media".

Chris Mason
Political editor

Image source, Getty Images

The size of the BBC and its funding model mean it has always been, will always be, and plenty say should always be, subject to the highest scrutiny.

For politicians of every political persuasion it is not just another organisation, which they can be detached from or disinterested in.

They will have a personal experience of it alongside any political view. The sharpest criticisms of the BBC have historically, and recently often but not always, come from the Right.

What comes next - for the government, and whoever the BBC finds to lead it - is a negotiation about its Charter - which sets out its purpose, governance and funding. The current Charter expires at the end of 2027.

That conversation will take place against a backdrop of colossal change in the global media landscape.

Plenty ponder how publicly funded and commercial UK-based media, providing news and wider programming, can survive, even thrive, when the internet in all its guises – streaming, social media - has upended so much.

Image source, PA Media

If you're just joining us, the BBC's director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness have resigned after the corporation came under fire over a Panorama documentary that was accused of misleadingly editing a speech by Donald Trump.

Here are the main developments:

• The BBC chair Samir Shah will give a statement to a parliamentary committee today in which he is anticipated to offer an apology
• It will come a day after Davie and Turness announced their resignations in separate emails to BBC staff
• Davie acknowledged on Sunday night that "there have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility"

• Turness said the ongoing controversy around the Panorama documentary was causing "damage to the BBC" and "the buck stops with me"
• She echoed Davie's acknowledgement that "mistakes have been made", but rejected recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased
• Donald Trump welcomed the news on Truth Social, writing: "The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught “doctoring” my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th"

• Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the BBC's leadership was treating allegations over "systemic bias" with "the seriousness that this demands"

Stay with us throughout the day as we bring you the latest developments.

Two resignations come at tricky political moment for BBCpublished at 22:51 GMT 9 November

22:51 GMT 9 November

Helen Catt
Political correspondent

Whoever takes over from Tim Davie will do so at a tricky political moment for the BBC.

Every 10 years, the government of the day draws up its new Charter, which sets out the BBC’s purpose, how it’s governed and how it’s funded.

The current charter is due to expire in 2027 and the government is supposed to be conducting a review.

Last year it said that would happen in 2025, but it hasn’t yet been launched.

There is also a wider backdrop of questions about the future of the licence fee.

Reform UK has vowed to scrap it if they win the next election and the Conservatives launched their own review of the licence fee when they were in power.

It means that the new director general will be taking over at a politically tricky moment and walking straight into discussions and negotiations with the government that could have a big impact on the BBC’s future.

We're now pausing our live coverage, but we'll be back first thing tomorrow with the latest developments.

Kathryn Armstrong
BBC News

This evening, BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness resigned.

It follows the Telegraph's publication of a leaked memo suggesting a Panorama documentary edited two parts of Trump's speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021.

In two separate statements, Davie acknowledged "there have been some mistakes" as Turness said "the buck stops with me".

UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy thanked Davie for his leadership of the BBC through a period of "significant change", and US President Donald Trump welcomed the resignations.

For now, there remains no information on when a new director general will be appointed.

We'll shortly be pausing our live coverage but, before we do, our political correspondent Helen Catt has taken a look at what the resignations mean for the BBC within the political climate.

And, we have more on this story across the BBC:

• Why has Tim Davie resigned and what was the Trump documentary edit?
• Davie and Turness resignation statements in full
• Tim Davie: A 20-year BBC career that finally ran out of road

Image source, PA Media

In the hours since director general Tim Davie and head of News Deborah Turness resigned from the BBC, reaction has poured in:

• Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says it is right that they resigned. The new leadership will need to deliver "genuine reform" to the BBC, she says, following a "catalogue of serious failures"
• Lib Dem leader Ed Davey says the BBC must see this as an opportunity to change, and "turn over a new leaf"
• Reform leader Nigel Farage calls it the BBC's "last chance", adding that the resignations must be "the start of wholesale change"
• US President Donald Trump welcomes the resignations. Referring to the Panorama documentary about him which has come under scrutiny, he says: "What a terrible thing for democracy"

Image source, Getty Images