Question Time (TV programme) being taken off the air, and the death of an audience member who collapsed while recording. The programme continued to enjoy good ratings during this period, notably on the day of Margaret Thatcher's resignation on 22 November 1990, which featured two different panels over two editions. David Dimbleby was chosen to succeed Peter Sissons as the programme’s presenter in 1994, after the BBC decided to hold two pilot show auditions between Dimbleby and Jeremy Paxman with two different audiences and two different panels. For a brief period under Dimbleby’s chairmanship in the mid-1990s there were a number of variations to
Question Time British National Party controversy Time", had been proposing an appearance by Griffin over the previous two years. "The Independent" gave credit to the BBC for resisting "the naïve showbiz instincts" of executives at Mentorn, who may have wanted "what Peter Hain calls a 'beanfest' for reasons well removed from the BBC's charter obligations." On 21 October, the day before the broadcast, the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, wrote an article for "The Guardian" entitled 'Keeping Nick Griffin off air is a job for parliament, not the BBC'. He said that those arguing for the BNP to be excluded from the programme were making the case