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Alan Yentob (11 March 1947 – 24 May 2025) was a British television executive and presenter. He held senior roles at the BBC, including head of music and arts, controller of BBC1 and BBC2, and was the corporation's creative director from 2004 until 2015. He was also chairman of the board of trustees of the charity Kids Company from 2003 until its collapse in 2015.
Yentob grew up in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester and returned to London with his family when he was 12 to live in a flat on Park Lane. He was a Boarding school at the independent school King's Ely in Cambridgeshire. He passed his in French, English and History, getting Bs, and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and spent a year at the University of Grenoble. He went on to study Law at the University of Leeds, where he became involved in student drama. He graduated with a lower second class degree () in 1968.
In 1973, Yentob became a producer and director, working on the high-profile documentary series Omnibus, for which, in 1975, he made a film called Cracked Actor about the musician David Bowie. In 1975, he helped initiate another BBC documentary series, Arena, of which he was editor from 1978 until 1985. The series returned, for semi-regular editions, until the present day.
Yentob left Arena to become the BBC's head of music and arts, a position he occupied until 1987, when he was promoted to controller of BBC Two, one of the youngest channel controllers in the BBC's history. Under Yentob's six-year stewardship he introduced programmes such as The Late Show, Have I Got News for You and Absolutely Fabulous.
In 1993, Yentob was promoted to controller of BBC One, responsible for the output of the BBC's premier channel. During his tenure he commissioned the dramas Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice and Ballykissangel, and cancelled the soap opera Eldorado. He remained in the post until 1996, when he was promoted again to become BBC Television's overall director of programmes. This appointment was only a brief one, before a re-organisation of the BBC's executive committee led to the creation of a new post, filled by Yentob, of director of drama, entertainment and children's." Alan Yentob, Creative Director ", BBC. Retrieved 4 January 2018. This placed Yentob in overall supervision of the BBC's output in these three genres across all media – radio, television and Internet. He occupied this post until June 2004, when new BBC director-general Mark Thompson re-organised the BBC's executive committee and promoted Yentob to the new post of BBC creative director, responsible for overseeing BBC creative output across television, radio and interactive services.
Yentob also began to present BBC programmes, which included a series on the life of Leonardo da Vinci and, from 2003, a new regular arts series, Imagine. One episode of Imagine had Yentob explore the World Wide Web, blogging, user-created content, and even the use of English Wikipedia, exploring people's motives and satisfaction that can be had from sharing information on such a large scale. In 2007, Yentob appeared as the 'host' of the satirical Imagine a Mildly Amusing Panel Show, a spoof Imagine... episode focused on the comedy panel game show Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
According to The Times, Yentob's reputation was affected when it was revealed that his participation in some of the interviews for Imagine had been faked. In 2007, it was reported that the programme inserted Nod shot featuring Yentob into interviews that he did not conduct, creating the impression that he had been present. Yentob was warned not to do this again, but otherwise not disciplined, much to the disgruntlement of some who had seen more junior staff lose their jobs for lesser misdemeanours. This controversy was covered in some newspapers as Noddygate.
On 17 March 2010, Yentob and Nigella Lawson opened the Jewish Museum London in Camden Town.
In July 2009, Yentob was revealed to have accumulated a pension worth £6.3m, giving an annual retirement income of £216,667 for the rest of his life. This was one of the biggest pensions in the public sector. He earned £200,000 – £249,999 as a BBC contributor and presenter. He was paid a declared salary of £183,000 by the BBC, but additional income from the BBC for presenting and other roles was reputed to earn him an extra £150,000, bringing his BBC income to an estimated £330,000.
Yentob was on the board of trustees of the Architecture Foundation. He was involved with several charities, including the posts of chairman and trustee of Kids Company.
Yentob resigned as the BBC's creative director on 3 December 2015 in the wake of allegations that he had sought to influence the BBC's coverage of the Kids Company scandal.
In 2005, Yentob was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from De Montfort University, Leicester. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2024 Birthday Honours for services to the arts and media.
Yentob was a friend of Salman Rushdie and spoke to him for the 2024 BBC programme Salman Rushdie: Through a Glass Darkly, which featured Rushdie's account of being stabbed multiple times by an attacker in New York State.
BBC director-general Tim Davie paid tribute, calling Yentob "a creative force and a cultural visionary" and saying he "shaped decades of programming at the BBC and beyond, with a passion for storytelling and public service that leave a lasting legacy". BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Amol Rajan described him as "such a unique and kind man: an improbable impresario from unlikely origins who became a towering figure in the culture of postwar Britain". Comedian David Baddiel described him as a "king of TV" and Pet Shop Boys said he was "a legend in British TV, responsible for some of the BBC's finest programmes."
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