ourBeeb recently held a group discussion with Claire Enders, Britain's leading media analyst, CEO of Enders Analysis - it was a scintillating couple of hours looking at the future of broadcasting that alternately surprised, concerned and inspired us a great deal. The 12 detailed slides she showed us about the changes affecting the media in 2012 can be found here. As well as myself, Anthony Barnett and the ourBeeb/openDemocracy team, we were lucky to be joined by Professor Natalie Fenton, Joint Head of Media and Communications at Goldsmith's.
We now present Part One of a two-part podcast containing some of the discussion's many highlights. Following that will be podcasted highlights of ourBeeb's discussion with the great Richard Eyre about culture and the BBC.
How can the BBC's public service broadcasting 'ecosystem' be protected against the forces ranged against it, whether it's NewsCorp, Amazon, Apple, or Google? Claire Enders argued the BBC and its backers need to set aside defeatism and celebrate a "culturally empowered nation", and in doing so defend the economic and intellectual future of the UK. "I'm not worried about our talent pool," she told us with confidence, "our talent pool is infinite."
Part Two, coming next week, explores radio as a pluralistic, democratic medium in detail, and the prospect that the BBC's share of news provision continues to grow - what are the implications for our democracy if the BBC is providing 80-90% of the nation's news?
The discussion was recorded at King's College London. This podcast was produced by Chris Wood.
Read more
Get our weekly email
Comments
We encourage anyone to comment, please consult the oD commenting guidelines if you have any questions.