Coming from a “Big Tech” role, Brittin has no prior editorial or programme-making experience, but his job now is to make the BBC fit for the future.
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, award-winning comedy producer Ash Atalla said Brittin has “got a job on” to turn the organisation from “a broadcast-first organisation into a digital organisation”.
“I think the time pressure he’s under to make that happen is immense,” said Atalla.
“The BBC is brilliant at making television shows. I think the BBC has been a little lethargic at making it digital first, then really meeting young audiences, in particular where they are, which is online.
“There’s a real clock on it because one of the things that frightens me most of all is when people say, ‘We’ll miss the BBC when it’s gone’. I certainly will and you certainly will, but I’m not sure that our children will, or their children will, because they don’t have the nostalgia around the BBC.”
Peter Barron, former editor of BBC current affairs TV show Newsnight, worked with Brittin as head of communications at Google and agrees there is a “sense of urgency” for change in “a couple of big areas”.
“There’s clearly the digital point that Ash makes,” Barron said. “I think also public trust is a huge issue.
“There are, unfortunately, swaths of the British population for whom the BBC is no longer for them – both on the left and the right.”
He continued: “A lot of young people these days say, ‘Well, I don’t consume the BBC’.
“Actually, the reality is they do consume the BBC, but maybe they don’t realise they’re consuming BBC.”