Samir Shah
Samir Shahis a British television and radio executive. He has worked for London Weekend Television, the BBC, and is the chief executive of Juniper TV (his own one man band company) a British company. In 2021, he co-authored the UK government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report.
On 6 December 2023, Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, put Shah forward to be the next Chairman of the BBC.
Shah joined London Weekend Television in 1979, where he was to work with two major figures in his career, John Birt, later director-general of the BBC, and Michael Wills, from whom he was to purchase Juniper TV, both of whom became life peers. In 1987, he was appointed BBC's head of television current affairs and from 1994 to 1998 was head of the BBC’s political journalism programmes. Shah has said that his decision to leave the BBC for the commercial world was influenced by a very long and expensive executives' residential course given by the London Business School which was "incredibly useful and covered proper, grown-up things"; "the importance of obvious stuff like talking to the people who work for you"; and "it is perfectly possible to make better programmes for less cost". The downside was that, having experienced a feel for the commercial world, the course was "quite significant" in his choosing to move on from the BBC.
In 1998, Shah purchased Juniper TV from Wills on the latter's election as a member of parliament, since when he has operated as its CEO and creative director. Juniper's programmes have been broadcast on the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, Discovery, TLC and Netflix.
Shah's appointment as one of the then three non-executive directors of the BBC in 2007 led to a potential conflict of interest, as Juniper was supplying programmes to the BBC, with Greenslade in 2007 reporting that Shah "steps out if the board touches on any area that might affect his business expertise in broadcasting is considered". Shah was involved in advising director-general Sir Mark Thompson over the Crowngate affair which resulted in BBC1 controller Peter Fincham resigning from the BBC. Shah was reported as claiming in 2008 that "One BBC ethos" presented a "monolithic posture that makes it appear anti-competitive".
