Kevin Bakhurst (born December 1965) is an English journalist and media executive who has been the

Director General of RTÉ The director general is the chief executive and editor-in-chief of public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). The current director general is Kevin Bakhurst, who replaced Dee Forbes in the role in 2023. Appointment and ro ...

, the Irish national broadcaster, since July 2023. He previously served as the managing director of news and current affairs and deputy Director General at RTÉ from 2012 to 2016, and before that as group director of content and media policy at the UK regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

Career

Bakhurst attended Haberdashers' Aske's School in Elstree and then St John's College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

where he read French and German. After a brief spell of working at

Price Waterhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along ...

, he joined the BBC in 1989, first as a researcher and then as an assistant producer at the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Business and Economics Unit. In 1990 he was promoted to producer of the ''

BBC Nine O'Clock News The ''BBC Nine O'Clock News'' is a news programme that was BBC News' flagship for more than thirty years. It was launched on 14 September 1970 and ran until 13 October 2000, when it was replaced by '' BBC Ten O'Clock News'' (later ''BBC News a ...

'', where he remained until he moved to

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

in 1994 to gain further experience for BBC News. In 1996, after two years in Brussels, he returned to the UK to become the assistant editor on the ''BBC Nine O'Clock News'', remaining with the programme when it became the '' BBC Ten O'Clock News''. From 2001 to 2003 he was an editor at the BBC News channel, and followed that by being named acting editor of the ''BBC Ten O'Clock News''. He was then confirmed as the permanent editor of the programme in March 2004. During his two years as editor of the ''BBC Ten O'Clock News'' it won two

Bafta The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

s for its coverage of the Madrid Bombings and the 2005 London Tube bombings, and a

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

award for News Programme of The Year. He was formerly the controller of the

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

channel, a position he held from December 2005 until September 2012, and was also controller of the BBC News at One bulletin. In May 2010 he became deputy head of the BBC Newsroom. From September 2012 to October 2016, Bakhurst was the managing director of news and current affairs at

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

's national public service broadcaster RTÉ. He also served as acting Director General for a six-month period. In April 2023, RTÉ announced the appointment of Bakhurst as the next

from July following an extensive and competitive recruitment process.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bakhurst, Kevin 1965 births Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Living people RTÉ executives BBC executives 21st-century Irish journalists Directors-general of RTÉ