Fine-tuned

Wayne Dunsford's ambition was to be in TV - as a child he wanted to be part of the audience of a talk show, later he wanted to be a talk show host. Now he is director of channels for BBC Worldwide.

Wayne Dunsford is a joy to interview. Aged 46, he's attractive without being striking, has a stream of funny anecdotes and comes across as a person who is genuinely enjoying his life.

His self-deprecating stories might fool you into thinking he doesn't take himself seriously, but I soon realise that he's confident enough to laugh at himself. I also have a sneaking suspicion it's not the first time he's rolling out amusing anecdotes - leaving no time for any thorny questions.

He can afford to be sure of himself. Dunsford started his BBC career in 1987 as a facilities manager. The person who interviewed him tried convincing him he was the wrong person for the job, but the young Dunsford wasn't having any of it and took the position.

It wasn't long before he wished he'd listened, as he found himself doing trivial jobs like ensuring the colours of the walls matched that of the waste bins. He says he was humiliated and ridiculed by the inconsequential demands of a well-known BBC presenter. I use my feminine wiles to the utmost to find out who it was, but Dunsford is as diplomatic as he is charming, and I have to admit defeat.

After six months he couldn't take it any more and quit to work as assistant director of fundraising at The Care Trust, a training centre in the East End of London. Eighteen months later, he got a call from the BBC senior press officer, the same lady who had interviewed him for his first BBC job.

She had heard that BBC Enterprises was looking for a project coordinator and felt he would suit the job. Dunsford hit it off straight away with the director, despite the fact that he wasn't quite sure how to spell 'satellite'. That could have been a bit unfortunate since BBC Enterprises was involved in an experimental satellite television project. (The BBC was hoping to develop branded channels in continental Europe.)

It seems Dunsford did a pretty good job (he's too modest to tell me this himself) because he then took over the programming and presentation of BBC TV Europe, which later became BBC World Service Television.

When this was replaced by BBC World and BBC Prime, Dunsford was appointed director of distribution and marketing and later became general manager of the channels.

Since 1998 he has been director of channels for Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa and Asia.

BBC Prime is now available in 100 countries and territories, and continues to grow. Now available in ten languages, it was the first international BBC channel to make a profit and has over 20 million subscribers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Dunsford led his team to launch a new channel, BBC Food, in Africa in 2002 then later in Europe and the Middle East. After this he went on to develop BBC Japan and a version of BBC Prime for Asia.

Not the falsely modest type, he admits his work has been very successful but acknowledges it has been a team effort all the way. Dunsford is a bit of a TV addict and is hard pressed to decide whether he prefers the X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing.

"I won't sit and watch just anything on TV," he insists, while going on to say that Desperate Housewives and Ally McBeal were "must-sees" and that he's also a big fan of soaps such as Coronation Street and Eastenders.

You can't say this man doesn't like his job.

I ask him what character he'd like to be on a TV programme. "I'd probably prefer to be an interviewer or presenter, someone like Terry Wogan or Michael Parkinson. I think that would be one of the most rewarding jobs because you'd be asking questions and getting to know people. If something like that came along, I'd grab it with both hands!"

It's funny he should mention Terry Wogan, that silver-tongued radio and TV presenter. I was just thinking that Dunsford reminds me of him. I'm not sure if it's the perma tan, the charming smile or the sense of humour but I can somehow see him leaning back in his armchair quizzing the good, the great and the awful.

I

I sometimes argue with my wife about who's going to win The X-Factor. We have a weekly dilemma because it's scheduled at the same time as Strictly Come Dancing but we use our PVR [personal video recorder] to record both and we watch them first thing the next morning to see who gets evicted. I won't listen to the radio or take any phone calls until I see them both.

I love the cinema but I don't like other cinema goers. I always end up sitting [behind] someone who's a head taller than me and just as wide, then I spend my time constantly craning my head to see the screen. And as far as I'm concerned, all sweet eating should be done before the movie starts! I prefer watching DVDs at home.

I love my work. It's quite demanding and I have high expectations for things to be done correctly. I try to prioritise things because my job requires me to travel a lot. I usually travel one week a month, but sometimes I can be away for as long as three weeks.

I like travelling and we've been coming to Dubai for the last six years because of the guaranteed [warm] weather and the high quality hotels. It might be a sign of ageing but I like familiarity like when the guys at the hotel desk know you.

ME

Me and my wife: My wife, Nuyan, is Turkish. We met in university [at Lancaster University in the UK].

[We were] in the same class, but that's not how we met. We stayed in the same halls of residence and in my first week at university I threw a party.

She marched down to my room at 2 am and asked me to be quiet. The next day I went up to her room to apologise. However, I didn't know that her mother and aunt were with

her so I ended up having to grovel to them all.

We were together for four years and had contemplated getting married but [decided] it was too early for us [to make this commitment]. Also, Nuyan was an only child and she wanted to go home to Turkey. She went on to have a great career in international banking.

After four years away, she came back to London for a two-week training course in February 1988. A mutual friend of ours, Andrew, suggested she give me a call. We met up one Sunday for a long lunch in an Italian restaurant. We were there for four hours. There was an elderly lady sitting near us, and funnily enough, she stayed for four hours, too. Afterwards we reckoned we had given her a very entertaining day!

Nuyan came back to see me again in May, then we met in August and we got married in November.

It's a bit of a cliché, but she really is my best friend. She's great fun and can be crazy at times. She loves her careerin international banking, where she earns a good living, but I think she might like to stop working at some stage.

Her mum was a wonderful cook and I - perhaps hopefully - assumed she would follow in her footsteps, but that was far from the truth. In work, I started up BBC Food, while in my private life I learned to cook - out of sheer necessity. Nuyan likes her food, but she prefers eating to cooking.

Me and growing up: I had a couple of near misses in my early years. I was born in Shropshire in England and had a very difficult birth ? I ingested something noxious - I never did get the full details - and had to be whisked to hospital in a helicopter.

It was touch-and-go whether I would survive, and maybe now some people wish I hadn't!

When I was three months old we moved to Ghana, where my father - who worked for the Royal Air Force (RAF) - helped set up the Ghanaian air force for just over two years.

I had an experience at nine months that must have horrified my parents. They had left me in the house with a babysitter, but she had given me some sweet orange drink before sleeping.

When my parents came to my room, they saw me lying in my cot completely covered with cockroaches. My mother went hysterical but my five-year-old sister, Adrienne, thought it was hilarious. Her reaction set the tone for our relationship throughout our lives.

Until our teens, we had a relationship of mutual hatred. In fact, when I was 7 I was accidentally hit on the head with a hammer and had to go to hospital.

The most vivid thing I remember is my sister laughing her head off at the time.

After Ghana, we moved to Kinloss in Scotland. It was November and bitterly cold but our house wasn't ready so we had to stay in a caravan. After about three years we moved to Cornwall where we lived for another two years.

When I was about 7, we moved to Singapore [and stayed there for about three years]. This was really a fantastic period because I was at an age when nothing bothered me.

Our whole social life revolved around the RAF officers' club. I got involved in competitive swimming and diving and my dad took up diving too.

In 1969 we both took part in the Men's Far Eastern Diving Championship. He took first place and I took second place, although I was only about ten at the time. I also got into water-skiing.

Singapore was terrific because it's a wonderful fusion of East [and] West and the weather is glorious.

I had [many] funny incidents in my childhood. Once I found my mother's false eyelashes and used superglue to attach them to my eyebrows. My parents had to cut them off with scissors, together with part of my eyebrows!

At 18, I went to Lancaster University where I first did a degree in international relations and strategic studies and then a master's in international relations. At some point, I had aspirations to join the diplomatic service but they had no aspiration to take me.

[At that stage] my parents had moved to a small town in Lincolnshire. When I visited them there I didn't know anyone and I realised that our nomadic existence had left me without a permanent base - so I did miss that [a base] in a way.

Myself

What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?

I was at the cinema and the person behind me kept talking, saying things such as "Now he's getting out of the car". When I turned around to complain, I noticed the other person was blind. I just turned back.

What's the biggest learning experience you've ever had?

My first job was as a development officer for the Community Taskforce in London. It was a government-funded initiative to train the long-term unemployed.

After only four months there, I told my boss I wanted to be a manager. He dismissed my request as cocky graduate arrogance.

But three weeks later, a manager was fired at a training centre in Solford, Manchester, and I was given the most important break in my life. My manager said he would give

me six months to make it work. If it didn't, I could return to work in London.

I was really thrown in at the deep end. On my first day I was introduced to the staff and shown my office; it was like an old headmasters office. I sat in the swivel chair, aged 25, for an hour, afraid to go outside the office. I was an outsider managing people old

enough to be my grandfather; I was a graduate and I wasn't even from Manchester.

I finally plucked up courage to go out and speak to the administration officer, who showed me the ropes.

Our centre taught painting, decorating and mechanics. The people there were rough around the edges and used language I'd never even heard [before]. And they were just the teachers.

Most of the youths had been forced to do the training and weren't motivated at all. I spent three amazing years there and learned more about work, people, teams and myself than I have learned in all the years since.

Groucho Marx said, "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." Isn't TV a bit of a waste of time when people could be doing something more active?

I think TV is a wonderful way to relax and to laugh, cry or be inspired - all in the privacy of your own home. I think it's down to individuals whether they want to watch TV.

People nowadays are more selective about their viewing. They're getting a balance in their lives. That's the joy of PVRs and DVDs. People don't have to stay [at home] to catch their favourite programmes.

Do you think TV mirrors reality in any way, or is it a parallel universe?

BBC produces some amazing, hard-hitting documentaries that mirror reality. And we also offer escapism with light programmes - so [television] can provide both.

What sort of role do you think television plays in increasing awareness of other countries and cultures? Does it open up the world?

Yes, TV gives immediate accessibility to images and debate. You get instantaneous news images in your home, and it can bring home ? the horrors going on in the world.

Only TV can really have that impact.