The BBC Trust is the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and aims to act in the best interests of licence fee payers.

The Trust was established by the Royal Charter for the BBC which came into effect on 1 January 2007. The Trust, and a formalised Executive Board, replaced the former Board of Governors.

In summary, the main roles of the Trust are in setting the overall strategic direction of the BBC, including its priorities, and in exercising a general oversight of the work of the Executive Board. The Trust will perform these roles in the public interest, particularly the interest of licence fee payers. — BBC Royal Charter (2006)

The Royal Charter establishes that the Trust should have twelve trustees, including a Chairman, a Vice-Chairman and a member for each of the nations of the United Kingdom. Appointments to the BBC Trust are made by Queen in Council, on the recommendation of government ministers.

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian American media mogul. Murdoch became managing director of Australia's News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of global media holding company the News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.

In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World followed closely by The Sun. He moved to New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times, his first British broadsheet.

In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.

Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC (born 12 May 1944) is a British Conservative politician and administrator. He is the current chairman of the BBC Trust, and was the last Governor of British Hong Kong.

Patten was Member of Parliament for Bath, eventually rising to a cabinet minister and party chairman. In the latter capacity, he orchestrated the Conservatives' unexpected fourth consecutive electoral victory in 1992, but lost his own seat in the House of Commons. He then accepted the post of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Hong Kong, and oversaw its handover to the People's Republic of China in July 1997. As Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Patten presided over a steady rise in the living standards of ordinary Hong Kongers while encouraging a significant expansion of Hong Kong's social welfare system.

From 2000 to 2004 he served as one of the United Kingdom's two members of the European Commission. After leaving that post, he returned to the UK and became the Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003, and he was made a Life Peer in 2005.

Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe, KBE (born 29 September 1956), often known as Seb Coe, is an English former athlete and politician. As a middle distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and set eight outdoor and three indoor world records in middle distance track events (and also participated in a world record relay). His rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.

Following his retirement from athletics he served as a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party from 1992–97, and became a life peer in 2000. He was the head of the London bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, and, after the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to London, became the chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. In 2007, he was also elected a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. On 25 August 2011, he was re-elected for another four year term.

Victoria Derbyshire (born 2 October 1968) is a British journalist and broadcaster, who currently presents the mid-morning news/current affairs & interview programme on BBC Radio 5 Live between 10am and 12noon each weekday. She is also an interviewer on the BBC News Channel.

Born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, Derbyshire attended Bury Grammar School before going on to study English at the University of Liverpool. There she decided to take up journalism and attended a post-graduate diploma course in radio and TV journalism at the then Preston Polytechnic, now the department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire.

She then worked in local radio and joined BBC Radio 5 Live in 1998 as a co-presenter of the breakfast show with Julian Worricker. The programme won a Gold Sony Award in 1998 and 2002.

In January 2003, Worricker left the breakfast show and Derbyshire was partnered with Nicky Campbell. After maternity leave, she took over the morning news programme in August 2004. Derbyshire also works on a number of television programmes including: an interview series on the BBC News Channel "Victoria Derbyshire Interviews..", Watchdog, The One Show, Lorraine Kelly, The Club, Central Weekend, Faking It and The Apprentice - You're Fired. She also hosted a sports chat show on Channel 4 on Saturday mornings called SportsTalk. Derbyshire has been sent to cover some of the biggest global stories since joining 5 Live: 9/11, the Paris Concorde crash, general elections, World Cups and Olympic Games.