Despite the alarms and excursions of last year, this is a great time
to be coming back to the 成人快手 - and an amazing moment in the history
of broadcasting.
Changes in technology combined with audiences who are more up for originality
and creative challenge than ever mean that the potential - and the need
- for the 成人快手 to build public value is greater than it ever has been.
As you heard from Michael Grade, we believe the 成人快手 has a leadership
role in this future world. In building a fully digital Britain. In ensuring
that no one is excluded from the benefits of the new technology. In
guaranteeing the right level of investment in British talent and voices
and the widest possible range of quality British content.
Now an economist might conclude from this that the 成人快手 has an important
role in preventing various kinds of market failure in the new digital
world.
Well, yes - but our vision is far bolder than that suggests. We look
forward to a future where the public have access to a treasure-house
of content, a store of value which spans media and platforms, develops
and grows over time, which the public own and can use freely in perpetuity.
Where the traditional one-way traffic from broadcaster to consumer
evolves into a true creative dialogue in which the public are not just
passive audiences but active, inspired participants.
So how are we going to do it? In Building Public Value, we commit ourselves
to:
Supporting the full roll-out of digital terrestrial television. We think
a switchover date of 2012 is realistic.
We will work with government and industry to find ways of funding and
co-ordinating the DTT build-out for all the Public Service Broadcasters.
We'll take a lead in the massive marketing and public information campaign
that will be needed.
We'll work with others to create a successful free digital satellite
service, able to reach those households who can't get DTT.
And we'll take a special responsibility for bringing the final cohorts
into the digital television universe.
When the market failed, the 成人快手 stepped in to help make Freeview a
success. We believe we have an equally critical role going forward.
But it's important to remember that digital television is only one
part of building a digital Britain.
We also want to accelerate the roll-out and take-up of digital radio.
We want to work with partners to make 成人快手 content available to audiences
when and where they want it - the 成人快手 on demand, which we're running
a trial on right now - and to help pioneer open access to rich broadband
content.
Whenever it's consistent with the 成人快手's brand and values, we'll make
that content available to other digital platforms and providers.
We want to launch a Creative Archive of our very best content, available
online and free to all - for learning, for creativity, for pleasure.
We want to work with others to make online and broadband more accessible
and more affordable.
Finally, we want to make it easier for people to find the content they
want; in partnership with others, developing easy-to-use navigational
tools.
We want to build a digital world based on universal access, open standards
and unencryption.
Encryption, subscription and other forms of digital exclusion lead
to widespread welfare losses.
They may well have a role within the total broadcasting ecology, but
the idea that they can successfully replace free-to-air public service
broadcasting, we believe, flies in the face both of economic theory
and our real-world experience.
Programmes and services that build public value
We can build an infrastructure, but digital Britain will only come
to life if it also becomes a creative space in which the best ideas
and the best talent can meet audiences who are hungry for originality
and quality.
In the end, the future will not be about pathways and platforms but
about content.
Universally available, outstanding, distinctive content has always
been and remains the point of the 成人快手.
But how should our services adapt and change to deliver the maximum
public value?
What new ideas do we have to reach new audiences or to offer existing
audiences a richer, more valuable service?
Active and informed citizenship
Let's begin the five 成人快手 purposes with journalism. The 成人快手 aims to
support civic life and national debate by providing trusted and impartial
news and information of the highest quality to help everyone to make
sense of the world and to engage with it.
Last week we announced that we'd implement the findings of the Neil
report in full. We want to recapture the full trust of audiences and
participants in 成人快手 journalism.
Over the past year, current affairs has grown in impact and seriousness
on 成人快手 Television. We want that process to continue - and in particular
to attract harder-to-reach groups to an intelligent news and current
affairs agenda.
We want to use digital technology to launch very local TV news services
for up to 60 cities and counties across the UK.
And we want to create many opportunities for people to become more active
citizens, with more open debate and participation online and on radio,
using our Open Centres and digital buses to engage people both with
new technology and their local communities.
British culture and creativity
The 成人快手 also aims to enrich the UK's cultural and creative life. How?
By bringing talent and audiences together to break new ground in the
drama, comedy, the arts, entertainment.
By celebrating our collective cultural heritage.
By broadening the national conversation.
We want to really focus on originality, ambition and excellence - and
this is just as important and relevant in popular genres like soaps
and entertainment as it is, say, in arts or religious programming.
So a bigger place for the bold and full-blooded and the risky - and
that can mean Strictly Come Dancing as much as State of Play - and,
as Michael suggested, a real effort to eliminate the derivative and
cynical.
We want to maintain the creative revival of drama across TV and radio,
with more opportunities in particular for single and event drama.
To develop comedy as a unique class- and generation-spanning 成人快手 strength
with more investment and more cross-platform collaborations.
To focus more on innovation and new talent in entertainment and sport.
And to defy standard programme genres to open up challenging subjects
to large audiences - from the arts and history to music, science and
religion.
More investment for 成人快手 FOUR and a more prominent place for culture
on ONE and TWO. And behind this, on radio and in new media as well as
TV, from our orchestras to 成人快手 Talent, the 成人快手's overarching commitment
as a patron to stimulate and chronicle our national cultural life.
And we also want to find new ways of stimulating the creativity of our
audiences themselves, using the 成人快手's educational, new media and local
resources to build skills in the arts and creative industries.
A revolution in learning
Next, we want to help bring about a revolution in learning, and by
offering educational opportunities to audiences of every age, to contribute
to the building of a society strong in knowledge and skills.
In practice we intend to:
Launch and deliver the 成人快手 Digital Curriculum to every school in the
UK, working with the rest of the sector to bring the learning revolution
to every British child.
To use bbc.co.uk and interactive TV to develop new personalised learning
opportunities for different audience groups.
To take a lead in media literacy and safety in online and other new
media environments.
And to launch a whole new raft of educational campaigns and initiatives,
wherever possible in partnership with others: focussing, for example,
on grass roots participation in sport and music with campaigns like
Music For All, joining schools and broadband-enabled homes to the full
range of the 成人快手's performance and learning resources.
Connected communities
We also believe the 成人快手 is an important builder of social capital,
seeking to increase social cohesion and tolerance by enabling the UK's
many communities to talk to themselves and each other about what they
hold in common and how they differ.
So we plan to:
Strengthen our core services and create new local services within Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland.
Create a full new 成人快手 region in central England, based in Milton Keynes.
Extend local radio coverage in traditionally underserved parts of the
country as well as offering all local radio services on digital platforms
and enhancing the 成人快手's local websites in ways which maximise distinctiveness
and usefulness but minimise adverse market impact.
Foster audience understanding of differences of ethnicity, faith, gender,
sexuality, age and ability or disability, by accurately and sensitively
reflecting modern Britain's diversity across our programmes and opening
up the 成人快手 itself to talent from every community.
We know that modern diversity isn't about political correctness or
narrow categories. It's about a public who are eager to discover and
celebrate their identity and to fully realise themselves.
We also want to continue to invest in the major sporting and public
events and 成人快手 initiatives - from Euro 2004 to D-Day to The Big Read
- events and initiatives that bring large sections of UK society together,
using the 成人快手's breadth of media at local, regional, national, UK and
global levels.
The UK's voice in the world
And finally, we are committed to supporting the UK's global role, by
being the world's most trusted provider of international news and information,
as well as by showcasing the best of British culture and talent to a
global audience.
We plan to:
Use a multimedia strategy to extend the reputation already built up
by the World Service and future-proof it around the globe.
Work to establish a firmer financial foundation for 成人快手 World, our global
TV news service.
Extend the 成人快手's successful network of strategic joint ventures to offer
better access to international audiences and markets for British talent
and culture.
And use the 成人快手's global presence to bring a richer international dimension
to domestic programmes and help to connect the people of a multicultural
UK to their international roots.
The public value test
Now, as Michael has made clear, none of these ideas will get off the
starting-blocks unless they pass the Board of Governors' new public
value test.
Details of this test are set out in Chapter Four of our document.
If you take a look, you'll see that it relies far more on external,
independent advice and objective economic modelling than any previous
成人快手 system.
It's worth saying that this approach owes a lot to the fresh thinking
that Ofcom have brought to the debate about public service broadcasting.
I don't think anyone thinks we can or should attempt to achieve a definitive
numerical calculus for measuring PSB, but systematic and objective evidence-gathering
must make sense.
However, this being a naughty and cynical world, some of you may nonetheless
find yourselves wondering if this whole public value test isn't really
just a fancy new way of rubber-stamping everything that the 成人快手 intends
to do anyway.
Well first, I hope Michael has convinced you that that's not the approach
he's going to take to this at all.
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Secondly I would add we're in the middle of a dry run, applying the
test according to the principles set out in Building Public Value to
our online services.
Interestingly, although much of the 成人快手's online offering has passed
the test, not all of it has.
As a result, we intend to announce the closure of some of the 成人快手's
online sites within the next few weeks.
The right scale and scope
In effect, the Governors will apply the public value test to set the
breadth of the 成人快手's services.
But we believe that the licence payer will continue to demand a very
wide range of services in return for the licence fee, and will expect
that range to evolve and improve as our technology and our understanding
of audiences develops.
This multimedia breadth is itself part of the 成人快手's public value with
all the synergies and linkages it allows.
The 成人快手 is much more than the sum of its parts. But the depth of the
成人快手 - in terms of its vertical integration, its in-house operations,
its commercial subsidiaries - is a separate question.
Again the right test is public value. It's in part to answer that question
that the Governors have asked me to carry out the series of reviews
that Michael mentioned:
First the review into the 成人快手's commissioning and production, examining
programme and content supply in all media, exploring the issues with
independent producers, freelancers and other external stakeholders as
well as with the 成人快手's own production community.
The 成人快手 has formidable creative talent and a great heritage inside
its walls, but there's strong talent outside the 成人快手 too.
The review will offer recommendations to ensure that the 成人快手 and the
licence payer always have access to the best ideas, that in-house capacity
is set at the right level in every genre, that the commissioning and
contracting of indies is fair and in accordance with the new terms of
trade, and that the 成人快手 never again misses its indie quota.
It will report in the autumn.
Secondly, the review of commercial activities. The 成人快手's commercial
subsidiaries - in particular 成人快手 Worldwide - have been highly successful
in recent years, but again we want to look closely at what is best done
inside the 成人快手 with owned-and-operated divisions and what should be
done in partnership or with an external contract.
This review will report by the end of the year.
Third, we are launching a top-to-bottom review of Value For Money across
the 成人快手.
We know that any discussion about a future licence fee settlement is
bound to begin with the question of self-help.
We also know that some of the ambitions we set out - especially the
build-out of digital Britain - will mean fresh investment.
We want to make sure we're using our existing resources as effectively
as possible.
This - as well as the opportunities for greater efficiency which new
technology offers us - is going to be a very big focus for me and my
colleagues going forward.
Fourth, we're committed to a further significant shift of the 成人快手's
activities out of London and into the rest of the UK.
Investment in the nations has grown sharply in recent years. There's
the potential for further growth there, but we also now want to move
a number of services and departments from London to create a major broadcast
centre in Manchester as well as examining opportunities for growth in
other parts of England.
Contrary to what you might read in some papers, I can assure you that
no decisions about what specific services might move have been taken.
Work on this plan will take place over the summer and I expect to announce
detailed proposals later in the year.
But by the end of the next Charter period, we predict that half of
the 成人快手's public service staff will be based outside London.
The 成人快手 will spend more than 拢1bn a year on content outside London
- more than a third more than today.
Other proposals
There are many other proposals in Building Public Value. Proposals
about how the 成人快手 can unlock the power of partnerships, from cultural
link-ups like our collaboration Painting the Weather with the National
Gallery and many other galleries, to education in GCSE Bitesize to the
philanthropic partnerships typified by Comic Relief and Children in
Need, which has made hundreds of millions of pounds, to the hard-edged
commercial partnerships the 成人快手 will need to fulfil its digital vision.
There'll be a new partnership contract, published later this year,
and we're looking at some new ideas for partnerships, like the creation
of joint venture public interest companies and the development of media
villages around the UK, where the 成人快手 provides space and infrastructure
for independent producers and talent.
We know how much more the 成人快手 can achieve when it faces out rather
than in.
There are also a set of proposals for a more open 成人快手.
Further improvements to 成人快手 Information which already handle two million
public contacts a year.
成人快手 buildings and centres which are more accessible and welcoming to
the public, including our new multimedia Open Centres and the 成人快手 learning
buses.
New, more prominent ways to discuss 成人快手 programmes on our own airwaves.
All this as well as the more transparent and credible complaints system
which Michael talked about.
Finally, we set out some ideas for transforming the licence fee, making
it easier for people to pay, more efficient for us to collect, and fairer
- paying a special emphasis on those who are least able to afford it.
Conclusion
Both Michael and I believe that today's manifesto and the reviews that
we are launching add up to an agenda of radical change for the 成人快手.
Change to take advantage of the digital revolution, but also change
to make the 成人快手 more responsive to its owners, the British public.
Change to make it a better partner and neighbour within the wider broadcasting
sector.
Now, you may say: 'Fine words, gentlemen, but we've heard fine words
from the 成人快手 before.'
I think it would be hard to read this document and conclude that we
weren't serious about the scale of the opportunity and the challenge
which the 成人快手 faces, or about the need for change.
But over the coming months, our various reviews will report and we
will publish and implement their findings.
They will give you a chance to judge us and the 成人快手's plans for the
future not just on the basis of our words but also on our actions.