Director of News and Current Affairs appointed

Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, says "The Director of News and Current Affairs is one of the most demanding of any in broadcasting.

“News is at the very heart of the BBC. I am delighted Fran Unsworth is taking up the role. She brings a combination of excellent news judgement, authority, management knowhow, and the trust of her colleagues both in news and across the BBC."

Fran Unsworth says: “I am delighted to lead BBC News and Current Affairs.

“We are living through a period of significant change at home and abroad. In a complex world, the BBC’s journalism matters more than ever.

“I am proud to lead a team of such dedicated and talented people.”

Fran will sit on the BBC’s Executive Committee and will oversee the BBC’s News and Current Affairs programming.

She takes up the role at the start of the new year.

BBC Press Office

Notes to editors

• Fran began her journalistic career in 1980 in BBC Local Radio, joining Radio 1's Newsbeat. She spent some time as a network radio producer in Washington DC, and later joined Radio 4's The World At One and PM.Fran was appointed the BBC's Home News Editor and then, in 2001, Head of Political Programmes. In 2005 she became Head of Newsgathering, running one of the world's largest newsgathering operations with bureaux across the world. For periods between November 2012 and June 2013, Fran was the BBC's Acting Director of News and Current Affairs. Fran Unsworth was made Director of the BBC World Service Group on 8 December 2014. In this role she led the BBC's global news services - BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com/news - as well as BBC Monitoring. Prior to her appointment to the World Service Group, she was Deputy Director of BBC News and Current Affairs.
• In the past year Fran has overseen the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s. This includes adding 12 new language services around the world, including services in Korean and Pidgin, and enhancing existing services, such as extra Russian language news bulletins.
• Salary details will be set out as part of the usual disclosure arrangements.
• BBC News is the largest broadcast news operation in the world providing trusted impartial news and analysis to audiences in the UK and internationally. BBC News is responsible for daily bulletins on the BBC’s main TV channels and radio stations, as well as flagship programmes like Today, Newsnight, Daily Politics, Question Time and Panorama. It also produces and runs regional TV and radio news programmes in England, the BBC News website, the BBC News Channel, BBC Parliament and BBC Radio 5 live.
• In 2016/17, BBC News reached 76% of the UK adults each week across all platforms,more than any other news provider. In 2017, overall, more than 60% of UK adults tune in to BBC TV news on average each week in the UK. The BBC regional 6.30pm news slot is the most watched UK bulletin. The BBC News Channel is the most watched news channel reaching almost 8m adults weekly in 2017. BBC News online is now used by around 30 million UK browsers each week. The BBC News UK app reached 7.5m monthly unique browsers in 2016/2017. BBC Network Radio news consistently reached more than half of adults in the UK weekly. The audience to Global News in 2017 was 348 million, up 8% on the previous year.