Mr. Entwistle acknowledged the damage the revelations have done to the BBC, an institution that many in Britain regard as a repository of much that is best in the country. “One can’t look back with anything but horror that his activities went on as long as they did undetected,” he said at the hearing. There was no question, he said, that what Jimmy Savile had done — and that the BBC culture had allowed to happen — “will raise questions of trust and reputation for us.”

The extent to which the scandal has shaken the country from its moorings was captured by the sight of one of the BBC’s own political correspondents reporting live from outside the hearing and comparing the elusive testimony of Mr. Entwistle, the reporter’s ultimate boss, to that given last year by James Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch’s stewardship of his father’s media empire in Britain ended, effectively, when he was grilled by the same committee last year as it investigated the phone hacking scandal that has convulsed News Corporation.

Other events during the day enhanced the sense that the scandal has the potential to force far-reaching change in a cultural climate that many commentators here have described as slow to respond to accusations of sexual abuse, especially when they have involved people in authority or with the power of celebrity. Without waiting for the inquiries to be completed, two charities established by Mr. Savile and bearing his name, dedicated to raising funds for the poor and the sick, announced that they were shutting down, and would distribute their funds to other charities.

After Mr. Entwistle struggled to give a precise answer to the lawmakers’ questions about other instances of sexual abuse uncovered by the BBC, the broadcaster issued a statement saying that it was aware of allegations involving nine other current or former staff members or contributors, whom it did not name, and that it had referred the cases to the police. One may have been the 1970s pop star Gary Glitter, a convicted child sex abuser who was named in an investigative documentary broadcast by the BBC on Monday as having been accused of abusing young people in BBC studios while performing on one of Mr. Savile’s shows.

In another development that prompted comparisons with the phone hacking scandal that has embroiled the Murdoch empire, there were fresh signs that inquiries into the Savile scandal may rely heavily on the e-mail trails left by important witnesses.