Tim Davie was trying to contain the fall-out. Defending the BBC following the resignation of director-general George Entwhistle, Auntie’s stand-in chief engaged in a frosty exchange on Sky News.

Asked whether Entwhistle incompetently handled a Newsnight story that libelled Lord McAlpine, Davie gave a curt response. “As editor-in-chief you take responsibility for the output – these are questions for him,” he said, before abruptly ending the interview.

That was nine years ago when the BBC was battling another internal crisis.

Fast-forward to this week and Davie was back on the front line fighting for the BBC’s future.

On Tuesday, Davie, the current director-general, and his predecessors Lord Hall and Lord Birt were grilled by culture committee MPs over the Martin Bashir scandal.

Lord Dyson found last month that Bashir had deployed “deceitful behaviour” to secure his explosive interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, and the BBC had covered it up.

“For us, as an institution that cares so deeply and has an outstanding record of journalistic integrity, it was a very low moment for us,” Davie told MPs in response to Prince William’s accusation that the interview had contributed to his mother’s “fear, paranoia and isolation”.

That conciliatory tone may not be enough to save the BBC from a radical reshaping.

Pressure is mounting on media minister John Whittingdale and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to take bold action to prevent another BBC scandal at a time when swathes of the public have become disillusioned with its coverage.

Times are changing

The BBC has faced accusations of bias on either side of the political spectrum, while perpetuating a culture where executives succumb to groupthink rather than challenging its actions.

Davie has told BBC staff that it has “significantly stronger processes and governance in place”.

Yet more change is on its way. Arch BBC sceptic Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor, has been heavily linked to the vacant chairmanship role at the media regulator Ofcom.

Meanwhile, ministers promised on Thursday to review whether BBC governance and regulation should be strengthened at next year’s midterm charter review.

Questions are mounting as to whether the BBC can hold onto its structure of semi-self regulation, or whether Ofcom will be tasked with keeping it on an even shorter leash.

The BBC has grown used to governance shake-ups in recent years.

As culture secretary, Whittingdale oversaw the 2016 shake-up that axed the BBC Trust, with regulatory oversight handed to the communications regulator Ofcom.

A corporate structure was also introduced with a non-executive chairman and directors to bring rigour to the decisions over the BBC’s budget and strategic direction.

Further efforts were taken to strengthen the level of scrutiny in April when Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Downing Street communications director, was handed a seat on the BBC board.

Sir Robbie has been an outspoken detractor, accusing Radio 4’s Today programme of providing a masterclass in why the BBC is losing the trust of its audience by becoming “trapped by its own ‘woke’ groupthink”.

He is part of a group of non-executive board directors - including Sir Nick Serota and Ian Hargreaves - who are reviewing the BBC's editorial policies and governance in the wake of the Dyson report. They will report back in September.

Still, as a former head of BBC political programme output, some may question why an outsider with a critical eye was not sought out instead of Sir Robbie to challenge the BBC's culture.

The latest blueprint for reining in the BBC has been presented by Lord Grade of Yarmouth, who is part of a panel reviewing public service broadcasters.

The former BBC and ITV chairman has advocated for an overhaul of the BBC’s editorial oversight by installing a new Court of Appeal style editorial board capable of tackling complaints levelled at the broadcaster’s news stories.

The board would be staffed with BBC outsiders, with former newspaper editors being mooted as possible candidates for the roles.

While Ofcom would provide the backstop, concerns are already mounting in broadcasting circles as to whether it would be enough to tackle the BBC’s cultural problems.

Time for an outsider?

David Elstein, the former BBC editor and chief executive of Channel 5, says recent scandals have exposed a weakness in the BBC’s internal systems for tackling staff who fail to accept culpability.

He has also pointed to his own experience of BBC complaints as evidence that the corporate governance systems are not functioning properly.

“The BBC’s internal complaints system is sinking under the strain,” Elstein says.

“If you complain to the BBC about a programme, it goes to the BBC complaints unit. And if you don’t like their response it goes to the executive complaints unit (ECU), where they are meant to respond within 35 working days.

“Yet, I know a complaint that is up to 125 working days. You cannot go to Ofcom until the ECU has issued its response, so people are losing the will to live.

“All the arguments for external regulation are there: the organisation is far too big, the director-general role of chief executive and editor-in-chief is impossible job to do properly, the chain of command is too long, there is no ability to deal with a rogue producer unless you have a forensic external person asking the questions, and there is an inadequate structure for dealing with external complaints in a culture that is complaints resistant.”

Ofcom appears to offer a ready-made solution should ministers decide to beef up its regulatory oversight of the BBC.

Such a move, however, would come with its own challenges. Bill Emmott, the former chairman of the Ofcom content board, is sceptical about handing the regulator more power over the BBC.

“They would be more distanced from the facts,” he says. “They would find it even harder to find information, which is a problem that bedevils governance at every type of organisation.

“Because the people at Ofcom are depoliticised technocrats, they are not likely to be very robust.

“While they are nitpicky and technical, they are not very challenging. These civil servant-types are not cut out to be robust.

“The more you hand power to an arms-length organisation, the more in danger you become of being less challenging.”

Davie’s fight to restore the BBC’s reputation is unlikely to get any easier in the months ahead, regardless of whether ministers farm more regulatory scrutiny out to Ofcom or not.

A BBC inquiry found on Monday that there was no evidence that Bashir was rehired by the BBC to cover up the ill-fated Diana, Princess of Wales interview. Earl Spencer gave an ominous response on Twitter: “It won’t end with this I promise”.

Davie will hope the Princess’s brother is wrong, but given the BBC’s track record, he would be unwise to count on it.