Lord Burns of Pitshanger, the former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and past chairman of Marks and Spencers, has emerged as the new chairman of Channel 4, replacing Luke Johnson.

Ofcom, the media regulator, is expected to announce the appointment this week, possibly as early as tomorrow. Lord Burns will take up the post by the year-end, according to people familiar with the appointment.

Other names that had been under consideration included Richard Eyre, a former chief executive of Capital radio and ITV, and Lord Alli, the Labour peer who founded Planet 24, a television production company, and currently chairman of Asos, the online retailer. Channel 4 insiders said that Zygos, whose Julia Budd was the headhunter handling the search, had indicated that it was keen for “strong women” to appear on the list for an appointment that usually takes the broadcasting establishment by surprise.

Lord Burns’s first task will be to appoint a new chief executive to replace Andy Duncan, who leaves next month.

The appointment of the chairman, selected by Ofcom, has to be approved by Ben Bradshaw, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Ofcom declined to comment.

Lord Burns, 65, is currently chairman of Abbey, now owned by the Spanish bank Santander, a post he took up in 2002.

The former Whitehall mandarin, known as “Teflon Terry" for his ability to ride the trickiest of situations, stepped down as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in 1998.

As chairman of M&S, Lord Burns facilitated the planned promotion of Sir Stuart Rose, M&S's chief executive, to the position of executive chairman. The plan caused serious disquiet among M&S's large institutional shareholders, who believed the decision breached corporate governance best practice.

In 2006 he led a review of the BBC's role in the run-up to the renewal of the corporation's ten-year charter. He was in the running for the chairmanship of the BBC in 2001, when Sir Christopher Bland resigned. The job went to Gavyn Davies. He was also in the frame to run Ofcom when it was created in 2003.

He chaired the Government's inquiry into hunting and led a review of the way the FA, football's governing body, was run in 2004 after it was hit by a series of scandals.

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