The board of Nowegian public broadcaster NRK today named Hans-Tore Bjerkaas as its new Director of Broadcasting. Bjerkaas, 55, takes over from John G Bernander. In a break from recent tradition, NRK chose to elect a media person rather than a former politician to the post. The new NRK boss is from Tromsø in northern Norway and is currently the district editor for NRK’s division for Troms and Finnmark counties.
Bjerkaas has years of executive experience with NRK and was acting Head of Broadcasting under Einar Førde. He also had a short stint at competitor TV 2, Norway’s main commercial channel, before returning to NRK. In 1997 he became NRK’s director of television for three years, and drafted the strategy to keep the public broadcaster competitive with commercial newcomers.
(Source: Aftenposten)
