BBC Moves Former Head of News Show That Dropped Jimmy Savile Abuse Report to Archive Post

LONDON -- Peter Rippon, the former editor of BBC flagship news magazine Newsnight who was criticized for dropping a planned report on sexual abuse allegations against Jimmy Savile, has a new job as head of the U.K. public broadcaster's online news archive.

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An internal probe into his decision to not air the report on late former TV host Savile, which contributed to the BBC's crisis in the fall, recently criticized him.

Rippon, a lifelong BBC staffer who stepped aside from his role as head of Newsnight in October, will on Monday start his new position as the editor of the BBC online archive, the broadcaster said.

He will be responsible for helping to create the definitive online archive collection of the BBC's TV and radio journalism output.

His new appointment was announced ahead of Friday's publication of the transcripts of interviews with executives and journalists to the independent probe into the decision to drop the Savile expose.

Rippon wrote a blog post in October explaining his decision to drop the report as an ITV documentary that aired the allegations against Savile. The BBC later corrected the blog post, and ITV ended up winning two Royal Television Society awards for its expose this week.

In his new post, Rippon reports to Andy Conroy, COO for BBC Future Media and BBC Online. "Over the past few years, the BBC has been making more of the BBC Archive available to audiences online," Conroy said. "This is an exciting opportunity to build a public record of the BBC’s world-leading television and radio journalism on BBC Online over 80 years."

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai