BLINK, and you could miss Mohit Bakaya’s continuing rise in one of Britain’s most revered institutions. He was appointed controller of BBC Radio 4 in 2019, the first person of colour to run a network radio station in the corporation’s 100-year history. In May 2022, he was promoted to his current position – director of speech. Bakaya is a humble man, quiet, fiercely and securely intelligent, someone comfortable in his own skin.
“It's quite big job. My day to day, I'm still running Radio 4. That's what I do. I'm trying to coordinate things, so that our speech coverage is more aligned. What I'm really hoping to do, given my new director of speech role, is to have some brilliant podcasts for BBC Sounds.”
The GG2 Power List has had the privilege of speaking with Bakaya for the past three years, and you are struck by his entire demeanor. He listens intently. He thinks quickly. Then he speaks, deliberately and passionately when asked about his highlights for 2022.
“We cover some of the big news stories. Remember, we had the queen's death, which was a big thing. We had the resignation of Boris Johnson, we had the appointment and resignation of Liz Truss. So, that was huge. And we had the war in Ukraine. So, one side is just simply the way we covered these seismic events.”
Then there were the programmes his commissioners brought to the Radio 4 listener.
“Things like the programmes on Vladimir Putin, which we did really fast as the kind of reactive series to explain who this man was who just upended the world with the war in Ukraine. We did The Coming Storm, which is a really major piece of journalism, from Gabriel Gatehouse looking at the QAnon phenomenon [conspiracy theories] in America. Then the was In Dark Corners, which was a very powerful series looking at child abuse in public schools, which actually had a real-world impact. It actually led to certain people being identified as perpetrators. So that was important.
“The other one, which was very important, was Disaster Trolls, which was looking at the way in which conspiracy theorists target people who've been involved in tragic events. So, this one was about a guy who started spreading disinformation about the people who were injured and killed in the Manchester Arena Bombing. Mariana Spring made the series for us, and as a result, this guy has pretty much been closed down. So, it was when Radio 4 really had an impact in the real world, and showed we can do things that no one else can do.”
Most of us outside the world of broadcasting are unlikely to appreciate how influential and powerful Bakaya is. Since his tenure, he has introduced more than 30 new voices to home of Britain’s most influential-agenda-setting radio station. Bakaya also advocates “solutions-focused-journalism”.
“I wanted to put in more constructive journalism to find answers as well as ask questions, to service is the audience in a world where things are pretty grim, and hope is incredibly important to me. But also, we put in presenters who people want to spend time with, who’re just a little more engaging, more able to just have a conversation with the audience. Part of it is just changing what we've got, and making it feel a little bit more user friendly, and some of it is bringing new things in to really to help the audience make sense of the world, and navigate their way through what are challenging times.”
Bakaya has one of the most difficult jobs in the UK media world. As the controller of Radio 4, the ears, opinions and views of middle-class Britain are constantly scrutinising him. According to the BBC, Radio 4’s target audience “35-54 ABC1 (commonly termed 'replenishers') makes up 24 per cent.” And everyone has an opinion. Think about the criticism of the “Archers monologues” during the pandemic. Not that Bakaya minds, after all he is firmly 100 per cent a servant of public service whose master is the listener. In his short tenure so far, he has tried to change the culture of the station he controls. The good news is that the world’s oldest radio soap about everyday folk has got its mojo back with some stunning plotlines and twists, according to fans on social media. What Bakaya has done, almost without anyone noticing, is make Radio 4 less white, younger and friendlier, said one broadcast veteran. The BBC man does not see it that way. It is about talent for him.
“They're all there because they are brilliant at doing what they do,” Bakaya told the Power List. The reason why they just slip under radar is because if it ever feels like you're doing things for the wrong reason, people will spot it a mile off. If you put people in because they're best people to do the job, and you happen to be able to represent the nation better because you're broader, and that's not just race but gender, religion, with people who actually Radio 4 through and through, then that's the best way to do it. The minute I start giving jobs to people because of their identity only, that's when it gets definitely becomes problematic.”
When he was a commissioner, Bakaya earned a reputation of being fiercely intellectual. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, the award-winning columnist with The i, and a professor at Middlesex University, confirmed this view.
“I’ve delivered programmes for him, and he’s a terribly, terribly tough commissioning editor, which is a very good thing,” she tells us. “So, he would really test your ideas in ways I’d never had tested before. It’s like being in an oral exam. He understands radio, he understands rather complex ideas, whether he says yes or no. So, if you are commissioned, then you know that he really believes in your idea.”
Bakaya chuckles when I mentioned that this and ask where the rigour, discipline and ‘fierce intelligence’ came from.
“My background is in politics and philosophy,” he begins. He read PPE (philosophy, politics and economics) at Keble College, Oxford. “I was brought up in a household where, as a friend of mine at my wedding said, ‘You'd go to Mo's house when you were young, and the first question would be quite straightforward, like, what football team do you support? And quite quickly, the questions moved to how do you know you exist?’ And that was kind of what my household was like.
“There were lots of political debate, and lots of, I wouldn't say argument, but kind of rigorous, conversation and exchanges of views. So, I am a bit like that and of course, I try, because I think it's the right thing for the controller of Radio 4 to do – kick the tires on ideas that come my way to make sure that before I put them in front of the audience, they're the right idea, and they've been properly tested.”
Bakaya was brought up in Battersea, London. His family were the only south Asians in his neighbourhood in 1960s Britain. Bakaya’s mother met his father when he was working in Bollywood, the Indian film industry. When they came to the UK, his father, Madan Bakaya, made it his mission to bring the films of his birth to this country. So, young Mohit remembers, as many south Asians of the 1960s and 1970s, going to venues where his father would screen the latest Bollywood blockbuster to eager audiences.
“My mother was a brilliant mathematician. She was in computers. She was one of the early women who worked in computer software,” he remembers with obvious pride. “So, that was her job, but she also was quite extraordinary. She died when I was eight, sadly, but in that time, I knew that she was amazing. She played the sitar, an Indian instrument, she gave recitals in our flat in Battersea. She was a potter, she was a painter, she was really interested in the arts as well as having this incredible kind of scientific brain as well.”
Bakaya also speaks fondly of his father and his two brothers.
“It was a tricky old time. I have two brothers and they were naturally coming out of university, and probably, at that point, would have gone on to live their lives and branch out. But as a result of my mother dying, they had to come back to London, and, not all the time, but kind of be around enough to help my father, who, not initially, got Parkinson's, so he wasn't incredibly well towards the end of his life.
“I think we struggled a bit as a family, but we pulled through, and I was lucky to have my brothers who were incredible during that period, some very good friends, good close family friends, where I would spend quite a lot of my time after outside school. I think I probably benefit from the resilience I acquired.”
Bakaya joined the BBC in 1993 in his late 20s, seven years after graduating from Oxford, as one of its prestigious production trainees. By that time, his father had passed away, but his brother, Samir Shah was already in the corporation in a senior position. But here is something which speaks to Bakaya’s integrity.
“I have to say the fact that neither my mother nor father saw that I joined the BBC, let alone become controller, really affords a source of eternal regret for me. Samir was in the BBC, and partly, I think, because he was in news and television, I chose to go into radio and arts. So, I stayed quite far away from him for quite as long as I could, until he left. I didn't tell a single soul he was my brother. We have different surnames, we have same mother different father, so they wouldn't associate us. But it was absolutely essential for me that I did it on my own two feet and terms, and no one thought that there was anything untoward. He didn't even know I was applying, I kept it very far away from him.”
The thing about Bakaya is that he is a man of his word. Unlike many people of colour, he made a solemn promise which he has kept.
“It's easy, in all the busy-ness to forget to do that, and it's something that matters to me. I've always said that if anyone ever wants to see me and talk to me, I remember what it was like to be a young producer or get into the industry. I've always tried to help people. Because otherwise, what's the point really?”
So, what can we expect from Mohit Bakaya in 2023?
“One of the things I want to do is work with our colleagues at Five Live to really create more impact and beef up things that really trouble people. So, the cost-of-living crisis and social care are some of the big issues I want us to grapple with them. I want us to do more on climate change, because I think that's another big issue that what we need to grapple with. But I also want to really find a way of getting drama and comedy to new audiences, because I think we've got a real opportunity because we’re such a big player in those two genres of bringing the next generation into comedy and drama. We've got a plan to do that. I want us to kind of make sure that, as well and all the brave news coverage, we're also giving people companionship, and joy, and escape.”
