Julius Caesar – He was loved by the masses, but after instituting a series of cuts to senior management, he became the recipient of more than a few cuts himself.
Attila the Hun – A fierce subscriber to the ‘take no prisoners’ school of institutional management, he swept into London from the east (Basildon), plundering talk show hosts from ITV and Channel 4 alike. Introduced a short-lived Red Button service for horse-racing tips.
Akira Kurosawa – His celebrated psychological thriller Rashomon, in which a murder is recounted in contradictory ways by different witnesses, was really just a rehash of his work on Question Time, where current affairs are described in contradictory ways by different pundits, and you want to murder them all.
Napoleon – Rose from a bumpy spell as Moscow Correspondent to the top job. Had a fractious relationship with successive Tory governments, and being a slightly chippy Corsican, found himself ill at ease in Hampstead drawing rooms.
Wes Anderson – Remember the BBC One ident of hippos swimming in a circle? If you watch closely, you’ll see Anderson directing them in the background. In a Victorian diving suit.
Alexander the Great – The young Macedonian founded and renamed dozens of cities across his vast but short-lived empire. To avoid accusations of regional bias, he set up a BBC media centre in each of them.
George Washington – Prior to masterminding the American Revolution, Washington embarked on a series of bruising broadcast battles with Sky. Rupert Murdoch got his own back on the country his rival founded by launching Fox News.
Quentin Tarantino – Had a long-running public spat with conservative activist Mary Whitehouse, during which he set the record for the most expletives in a published letter to The Times. Yet when the pair eventually met they got on famously, both agreeing that film and TV had been going downhill since the ’50s.
