Matt Brittin, the new director-general of the BBC, delivered an impressive performance during a charged Q&A at the Edinburgh TV Festival, where he answered questions on topics ranging from AI to budget cuts to the corporation’s ongoing legal battle with Donald Trump.
Brittin, a longtime Google executive, took on the BBC’s top job, described by many as a “poisoned chalice,” in May.
During his Thursday session at the festival, the one-time Olympic rower sparred with former “Newsnight” presenter Kirsty Wark on stage before taking rapid-fire questions from an audience comprised of journalists, producers, students and even a disgruntled political candidate who’d stood against Nigel Farage and Count Binface in the recent Clacton by-election.
Despite his tech background, Brittin ditched the Q&A function on the festival’s app in favor of roaming microphones in the audience, giving him a chance to speak directly with his interrogators.
That seemingly minor decision tallied with his message (given in response to Wark’s question about the BBC developing more YouTube channels) that at the BBC, “We should be closer to the audience.”
“I mean, obviously, in terms of the stories we tell and the impact we have on people’s lives, better understanding what concerns them, but we also need to go where they are. BBC News should be everywhere, in my view. Everywhere — because it’s a disinfectant for misinformation.”
That’s despite the fact the corporate is currently in the middle of a lawsuit with President Trump over a “Panorama” documentary in which the President’s speech during the infamous Jan. 6 riots was misleadingly edited. Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit in Florida over the revelation, leading to the resignation of Brittin’s predecessor Tim Davie.
“Obviously, the decision to vigorously defend ourselves in the Florida court is something that predates me,” the current DG said, “but I very much support it. I think it’s really important that we defend our integrity. We moved to dismiss the case on the grounds of jurisdiction — in that nobody in the U.S. actually saw the show with the bad edit, and it was a bad edit.”
Before taking the job, Brittin spent six weeks touring the U.K. and visiting various arms of the sprawling corporation, which includes television, news, radio, podcasts and production, among other facets.
And he was not afraid to be frank about some of the over-production he had already seen at the corporation, for example with video podcasts. “We do need to offer that, but we don’t necessarily need to have radio studios with incredibly expensive cameras and monitors in front of the presenters face,” he pointed out. “We can do it better at home [on cheaper equipment] than we can in some of our studios.”
The observation earned a sarcastic response from Wark, who replied: “Wow, we’ll just come to your house then.”
Inevitably, talk turned to the BBC’s funding model, which is currently dropping to critical levels, with increasing numbers of viewers opting out of paying the license fee – required in the U.K. for watching any live television on any network and any platform – as they turn to streaming on demand, whether via behemoths like Netflix and Disney+ or YouTube. Coupled with inflation, it has created a massive gap in the BBC’s budgets, which are funded via the license fee as it is not allowed to run adverts.
In his alternative McTaggart speech, former BBC media editor Amol Rajan said he was leaving the corporation partly because of its funding deficit. “Firstly, I think whatever the funding model, the BBC has got a big opportunity to have more impact on the audience…” said Brittin. “Secondly, it depends on the charter and the funding settlements exactly how we do that.”
When Variety asked about Brittin’s proposal for a household levy – effectively a tax across the U.K. to fund the BBC — he replied: “It’s for the government to decide based on this consultation. What I’m making the case for is that we need sufficient funding to fulfil the remit well.”
Brittin also said that if the BBC were to be funded via a household levy, it would potentially be cheaper than the current license fee, which is £180 per year ($245).
“You might be able to go from sort of £15 a month per household down to like £12.”
The last question came from a young aspiring broadcaster, who asked Brittin how he intends to make the BBC feel relevant for rising talent.
“Well, I definitely think the BBC shouldn’t be what it wants was,” he replied. “It should be what it should be for the future. We need to reinvent the BBC for tomorrow.”
He went on to share what persuaded him to take on the director-general job, revealing that it was something he’d read about the BBC’s launch a hundred years ago and how it had reinvented itself over that time. ““At the inception, the pioneers had no idea what they were doing,” he said. “They invented broadcast radio and the content had mad, inaccessible operas alongside recipes, and they then scaled it up.”
“They reinvented broadcast and recording technology so that they could go and cover the D-Day landings and on and on and on,” he continued. “So I think the BBC has this incredible pioneering spirit at its best, and I want the BBC at its best for the future.”