‘Not for the faint-hearted’: is running the BBC an impossible job?

After Tim Davie's resignation, the next director general will face internal strife, external noise and looming talks over the corporation's existence and purpose

As BBC senior editors arrived at its New Broadcasting House headquarters in central London on Monday, the most pressing question was what had convinced Tim Davie, the corporation's director general, to quit suddenly. Like any good BBC drama, it was a plot twist no one had seen coming.

As they assessed the brutal pressures that had finally proved too much for Davie, a second question soon arose. Was running the BBC now simply an impossible job?