- He was the Director-General of the BBC from 1982-1987. He was forced to resign in January of 1987 after a period of pressure from the Conservative government, who perceived a left-wing bias in the corporation's direction and programming content during his tenure.
- His son is Seumas Milne, former columnist and associate editor on The Guardian.
- He spoke Gaelic fluently and chaired the Gaelic Broadcasting Task Force, which produced a report in 2000 recommending the establishment of a Gaelic Broadcasting Authority to run a new digital Gaelic channel.
- As BBC director of programmes in the 1970s, he stopped the original transmission of Dennis Potter's controversial play Brimstone and Treacle (1976) and was also (according to producer Philip Hinchcliffe) behind the cancellation of the police series Target (1977), which had been criticised for being overly violent.
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