Sunday March 27, 2005 :
SKY
Former BBC director-general Greg Dyke is reported to be in talks that could lead to him running the company behind the Big Brother series.
Mr Dyke is thought to have been approached by
Endemol - which is also behind Fame Academy, Ready Steady Cook and Ground Force.
The move comes ahead of a £1.75bn flotation planned for the company, owned by Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica later this year.
An executive who knows Mr Dyke was quoted as being hopeful a deal could be struck.
He said the plan was to float Netherlands-based Endemol on the London Stock Exchange.
He added: "It probably wouldn't be all that long before it joined the FTSE 100 Index."
Mr Dyke left the BBC in January last year after Lord Hutton's verdict on the BBC's reporting of the Government's Iraq weapons dossier.
It is thought he was introduced to Telefonica by investment bank UBS.
His appointment would bolster Endemol's stock market value due to his extensive experience in commercial television with TV-am, TVS, LWT and Pearson.
Netherlands-based Endemol, which employs 3,300 full-time staff, has effectively been up for sale since last year when Telefonica confirmed it viewed the company as a non-core asset.
