Speech on Media

Collegues,

I would once again like to congratulate you, editors, journalists, scripts, and all of you working behind the projectors. Thanks to you, the BBC Media Group has acquired an important and at the same time stable position in the british medias, albeit on television or on the radio. Our audience rates have doubled from last year to today and the group benefits have increased of more than 75%. Not only should this success profit to the BBCMG, but the audience should also be rewarded for its fidelity and confidence to our programmes. We should analyse what we have achieved, and try and push it even further.

Every single minute of every single day, we should always be proud of our programmes, whether it concerns sports, news or entertainment. Some media groups in the United Kingdom seem to have prefered quantity to quality: they do, we don't and we should never do. Today's society is oppressing and people are constantly running after time. Therefore when a british citizen sits down and watch television, he wants to relax and escape from his regular life. All media groups have understood this. However, most of them have adopted immoral strategies. We strongly believe that reality shows and extravagant talk-shows are not what the audience is waiting for. It seems to us that, british television is « americanizing » itself and will in a few years only consist of an addition of vulgar programmes. As the BBC always did and will always do, you must, we must continue to offer a quality alternative to our audience.

Another issue I would like to raise is the problem of advertising. Advertising plays a crucial role for the group and for its quality. However, we are face with an ethical dilemna. Some people say that we should increase the number of advertisements in order to gain more and more benefits. Others believe that we should simply forbid avertising in medias and focus ourselves on the programmes? It appears that 50% of our annual profits is due to advertising. Considering this fact, the likelihood of stopping all advertisements to be programmeed on the BBC is completely irrealistic, contradictory and even dangerous. However, as a media group we have a strong influence on people, particularly children. We convey a certain life style and values. So we must assure ourself that these are the ones that we share.

As Chief executive of the BBC's Children's programmes department, I see a concrete application to progress. Children's obesity is a society issue that concerns a quarter of our kids. And I repeat, kids represent a large part of our audience and are easily influenced. A recent study showed that a child stays more than two hours watching television every single day! Therefore we must understand the enormous responsability