The BBC has been forced to deal with a huge resignation in the aftermath of the Huw Edwards scandal.
On Wednesday, the former newsreader pleaded guilty in court to three charges of making incident images of children.
The next day, BBC boss Tim Davie announced that Gautam Rangarajan, the firm’s Director of Strategy, had stepped down from his role.
The news of Rangarajan’s resignation also comes following allegations made against Strictly Come Dancing professional dancers ahead the 2024 series.
‘After 11 years as the BBC’s Group Director of Strategy & Performance, and over three decades with the BBC, Gautam has decided to hand on the leadership of BBC strategy to someone new, and to take on a fresh challenge outside the organisation,’ Davie said.
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In the statement obtained by The Sun, he continued: ‘Gautam has contributed so much to the BBC.
‘With Gautam’s departure, I have taken this opportunity to think about how we drive the implementation and delivery of our Value for All strategy across the BBC Group.’
Rangarajan has been at the BBC since 1993, having first started working at the company as a producer on Radio 3.
After making music programmes on the radio and on TV, he changes roles to work on policy and strategy development.
On the BBC’s website, it says that his role as Director of Strategy entails hi and his team being ‘responsible for the BBC’s thinking on the evolution of markets, audiences and technologies and help develop creative and practical ideas for how the BBC and its services should respond to these changes’.
According to a source, ‘many within the BBC see Gautam’s departure as the first head to roll off the back of Strictly and Huw’.
‘He was involved in a lot of the corporate handling of it and whilst he could have survived Strictly, just about, there’s no way his position was tenable after Huw,’ they told The Sun.
‘The BBC needs to get its house in order and be seen to be taking action to clean things up. Guatam appears to be the first casualty of this.’
While at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Wednesday, Edwards pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent photographs, after he was sent 41 illegal images by convicted paedophile Alex Williams.
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Metro.co.uk has contacted the BBC for comment.