BBC appoints new director-general amid pedophilia scandal LONDON - The BBC appointed a new director-general on Thursday, moving quickly to fill the top post following the resignation of its previous leader amid a damaging pedophilia scandal. Tony Hall, a longtime former BBC insider and former director of news, who is currently the chief executive of the Royal Opera House, will step into the high-profile role. "The past eight weeks have been very traumatic for the BBC," Chris Patten, the former Hong Kong governor and current chairman of the BBC Trust, which oversees the broadcaster, said in statement to staff. Lord Patten said this was "a significant day for the BBC," that "marks the beginning of a new phase." The key challenge will be re-establishing our reputation with the public. I hope you will all support Tony Hall as he goes about the important work of doing just that," he told staff. The previous director-general, George Entwistle, lasted just eight weeks in the job before resigning over the BBC's incorrect slurring of a former Conservative politician as a child abuser. Entwistle took the role from Mark Thompson, who recently became executive of The New York Times Company. The BBC said it would pay McAlpine about $293,000, plus legal costs, in a settlement. Entwistle was forced to resign after a humiliating round of interviews that cast severe doubt on his ability to control the vast organization. The interim director-general, Tim Davie, had vowed to "get a grip" on the situation, but he compounded the sense of crisis at the BBC when he bizarrely stormed off in his first live interview on Sky News. McAlpine spoke movingly of his dismay at the BBC's shoddy journalism and the horror of being wrongly labeled a child abuser. "Of course they should have called me and I would have told them exactly what they learned later on," McAlpine, who is 70, told BBC Radio. And it gets into your soul and you just think there's something wrong with the world," he said. The scandal has plunged the 90-year-old broadcaster into crisis, raising questions over its journalistic and management standards. In the first case, the show chose not to broadcast allegations of child abuse about the late BBC TV presenter Jimmy Savile. Lord Patten has come under heavy pressure for approving a full-year payout for Entwistle, despite him lasting just eight weeks in the job.