Tim Davie (born 1967) is the BBC's Director of Audio and Music. He joined the BBC in April 2005.
In his current role, he sits on the BBC's Executive Board with overall responsibility for all of the BBC's national radio networks and the corporation's music output across all media. This includes BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4; as well as the BBC digital radio stations Asian Network, 1Xtra, 6 Music and BBC 7; the three BBC orchestras based in England; and the Proms. He also heads up programme making teams across radio and music television. BBC Audio and Music has an annual programming budget of c.£200 million and a staff of over 1,400. In June 2008, it was announced that he was replacing Dame Jenny Abramsky who served at the BBC for 39 years before leaving to chair the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Prior to his current role, he was BBC Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences.
He was Mark Thompson's first senior external appointment as Director General of the BBC.
Appointed as UK Marketing Manager for PepsiCo in 1993, Tim was subsequently promoted to Vice President, Marketing, Europe and Sub-Sahara Africa, holding several similar appointments, including in the United States, before taking up the Vice President for Marketing and Franchise post.
Prior to PepsiCo, Tim Davie worked at Procter & Gamble having studied English at Selwyn College, Cambridge.
He has been Chairman of Freesat, a Director of Freeview and Digital UK and is currently Trustee and Vice Chairman of Children in Need.
Tim is married to Anne with three sons.
In July 2009 he was listed on The Guardian's list of the 100 most influential people in the media.[1]
Controversy In early 2010 Tim Davie was responsible for the decision to close the much loved specialist music station, BBC Radio 6Music and also BBC Asian Network.
This decision led to an unprecedented campaign generating over 60,000 petition signatures, 50,000 complaints to the BBC trust and over 2.5 million visits to the website dedicated to saving 6Music at love6music.com.
There were two protests at BBC Broadcasting House in March 2010 and again in May 2010.
Following the announcement of closure, the publicity generated by the "Save 6Music" campaigners resulted in a huge surge in listener numbers at a pace that the BBC had been unable to achieve before. By the end on March 2010, listener numbers had risen from circa 700,000 to circa 1 million. By the time that the BBC Trust announced that they had listened to the campaigners and were rejecting the closure proposals of the executive board in July 2010, listener numbers were at almost 1.4 million - almost double that at the start of the campaign.
It was later announced that BBC Asian Network would also continue to broadcast.
Despite the acknowledged error of judgement, Tim Davie retains his position as BBC Director of Audio & Music.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/04/bbc-tim-davie-6-music