Addressing a Royal Television Society lecture last night, his first major speech since he was appointed in April, Lyons said the corporation needed to "change significantly" to be "fit for purpose" and that it had left this much-needed reform until "rather late in the day".
He said he was worried by the findings of a consultation, which showed only two-thirds of people in Scotland and the North of England agreed they would "miss the BBC if it wasn't there". This compares with 84% in the South East.
Lyons said: "One of the most worrying findings is that people's loyalty to the BBC drops noticeably the further away they live from London.
"Audiences are telling us that the BBC is still too London-centric -- and that has to change. The BBC has to deliver value to all its licence fee payers, wherever they live."
Lyons, a former chief executive of Birmingham City Council, said the planned move of 1,500 BBC jobs from London to Salford was part of the answer.
BBC Sport, Children's and Radio FiveLive are among the departments given the green light by The BBC Trust to head north by 2011 to a new state-of-the-art Media City in Salford Quays on the outskirts of Manchester city centre.
Lyons said: "For me, the key benefit of the move is that it will strengthen the BBC's ability to reflect the realities of the communities of the north of England.
"I think the BBC has sometimes been too slow to recognise its out-of-London responsibilities. And this issue of the BBC delivering value to all its licence fee payers, wherever they live, will be a subject of continuing challenge from the Trust."
Lyons touched on the issue of viewer trust and the recent spate of "editorial lapses" unearthed by an internal BBC review -- including deception in television and radio competitions ranging from Blue Peter to the Liz Kershaw show on BBC 6 Music.
Lyons said: "Recent events have cast some disturbing shadows on our reputation. The BBC Trust will not be content until we are convinced that the remedies have eradicated the problems."
Summing up, Lyons said the BBC had to work hard to offer "real value" to licence fee payers.
"The BBC, and the licence fee that supports it, can only be justified if the BBC delivers something of real value to everyone in the UK, and is valued by them in return.
"To achieve that goal it needs to reshape and do some things differently. That inevitably means there are difficult choices to be made."
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