| Samir Shah | |
| Honorific Suffix: | CBE |
| Office: | Chair of the BBC |
| Term: | 4 March 2024 |
| Predecessor: | Dame Elan Closs Stephens |
| Birth Date: | 29 January 1952 |
| Birth Place: | Aurangabad, India |
| Awards: | CBE |
Samir Shah, CBE (born 29 January 1952), is a British television and radio executive. He has worked for London Weekend Television, the BBC, and is the chief executive of Juniper TV (his own one man band company) a British company. In 2021, he co-authored the UK government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report.
On 6 December 2023, Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, put Shah forward to be the next Chairman of the BBC.[1]
Shah was born in 1952 in Aurangabad, India, to Amrit Shah and Uma Bakaya; the family moved to England in 1960. His half-brother, with whom he shares the same mother, is Mohit Bakaya., Bakaya is controller of BBC Radio 4.[2] Shah was educated at Latymer Upper School, an independent school in West London. He subsequently earned a bachelor's degree in geography at the University of Hull.
He then got a doctorate (DPhil) in anthropology and geography at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1979 with a thesis titled "Aspects of the geographic analysis of Asian immigrants in London".[3]
Shah joined London Weekend Television in 1979, where he was to work with two major figures in his career, John Birt, later director-general of the BBC, and Michael Wills, from whom he was to purchase Juniper TV, both of whom became life peers. In 1987, he was appointed BBC's head of television current affairs and from 1994 to 1998 was head of the BBC’s political journalism programmes. Shah has said that his decision to leave the BBC for the commercial world was influenced by a very long and expensive executives' residential course given by the London Business School which was "incredibly useful and covered proper, grown-up things"; "the importance of obvious stuff like talking to the people who work for you"; and "it is perfectly possible to make better programmes for less cost". The downside was that, having experienced a feel for the commercial world, the course was "quite significant" in his choosing to move on from the BBC.
In 1998, Shah purchased Juniper TV from Wills on the latter's appointment as a member of parliament, since when he has operated as its CEO and creative director. Juniper's programmes have been broadcast on the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, Discovery, TLC and Netflix.
Shah's appointment as one of the then three non-executive directors of the BBC in 2007 led to a potential conflict of interest, as Juniper was supplying programmes to the BBC, with Greenslade in 2007 reporting that Shah "steps out if the board touches on any area that might affect his business expertise in broadcasting is considered". Shah was involved in advising director-general Sir Mark Thompson over the Crowngate affair which resulted in BBC1 controller Peter Fincham resigning from the BBC. Shah was reported as claiming in 2008 that "One BBC ethos" presented a "monolithic posture that makes it appear anti-competitive".
Shah was appointed an OBE "for services to equal opportunities in broadcasting" in 2001, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 2002. He was promoted to a CBE "for services to heritage and television" in 2019.
Referred to by The Guardian in June 2008 as "one of the most successful figures in modern British broadcasting", in February 2022 he received an Outstanding Contribution Award from the Royal Television Society for services over 40 years and commitment to diversity in television journalism.