MUMBAI: BBC director general Mark Thompson will step down from his post and leave the organisation either later this year after the Olympic Games or in 2013.

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten had said earlier that the organisation had already employed headhunters Egon Zehnder to search for a successor to Thompson.

Reports state that there are three internal possibilities for the job. They are BBC COO Caroline Thomson, BBC News head Helen Boaden and BBC Vision head George Entwistle.