Post bureaucracy and the politics of forgetting : The management of change at the BBC, 1991‐2002

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the imputed “fall” and subsequent “reinvention” of the BBC during the 1990s, relating a managerialist “politics of forgetting” to the broader ideological narratives of “the post bureaucratic turn”. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, combining case study analysis with long‐term historical perspectives on organisational change. Findings – The paper shows the ways in which public sector professionals contested “post bureaucratic” pressures for marketisation and organisational disaggregation. Originality/value – The paper shows the ways in which large‐scale technological, regulatory and organisational change was mediated by cultural continuities and recurrent “surges” of managerial control.