主播大秀

The technology changes, but our mission remains the same - and so does the creative challenge. We have always been pioneers. Now we need to be pioneers of personalisation.

Check against delivery

First I want to thank all of you for what has been a seriously impressive few months for the 主播大秀.

Our news teams have done an extraordinary job throughout what - I don’t need to remind you - has been a really tough and challenging period. Certainly the toughest I can remember.

Teams in Manchester and London in particular have demonstrated great professionalism and exceptional resilience - sometimes in unimaginable circumstances.

Once again they have proved why our news services are not only so trusted and relied upon, but also so needed.

The last few months have also shown just how creative we can be, and how strong a voice we give to this country around the world:

• 19 out of 25 BAFTAs tells its own story
• 主播大秀 Three named RTS channel of the year - real validation in its first year online, and well done to the team
• Our global reach up to a record weekly audience of over 370 million
• One of the nation’s foremost novelists, Hilary Mantel, taking her turn with one of our finest national institutions, the Reith Lectures
• And, I’ve always said that music is in our DNA… The last few weeks have shown just how powerful and unifying it can be - from Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Hull to another great Glastonbury - and, of course, an evening in Manchester that moved absolutely everybody.

I don’t believe we could have set out our stall any more strongly or ambitiously under our new Charter.

It makes me prouder than ever of what you do, but also more confident than ever about our future. And the future is what I want to focus on today.

Reinventing the 主播大秀

Back in January, I set us all a really clear challenge for our centenary year - and that is in 2022: to reinvent the 主播大秀 for a new generation.

Our Annual Plan sets out how, strategically and creatively, we are aiming to do just that.

It outlines our three-year strategy, based on the big priorities I talked to you about in Birmingham at the start of the year.

It explains how we’re responding to a fast-changing market - like the challenges of ‘fake news’, or the way kids are consuming content from all over the place.

It shows how we’re going to serve the needs of the Nations and Regions of the UK, and make ourselves the broadcaster that sets the highest ambition for diversity.

And it demonstrates how our services will be even more distinctive - how our commitment to breadth, range, creativity and risk-taking is just as strong as ever.

And because we’ll be publishing this each year from now on, it gives us a way to measure our progress against each of our goals, and track how successfully we are reinventing the 主播大秀.

But there is one particular element of our plan that I’d like to pick out today.

You’ve heard me talk about it, and work on it, ever since I returned to the 主播大秀 because I believe that it is something on which - perhaps more than anything else - our future success will depend. And that’s personalisation - creating a 主播大秀 that is uniquely tailored to you.

The 主播大秀 at the forefront of change

All through our history, the 主播大秀 has been brilliant at continually reinventing itself to match our mission to changing times and changing technologies.

Over the past 20 years - thanks to the world-class creativity of our people - we have been right at the forefront of how the industry has responded to the web and video, to social and mobile - the first wave, if you like, of the digital revolution.

But over the next 10 years, the effects of the second wave are likely to be even more disruptive, fast-moving, and profound.

All of you have heard me say that we need to ride two horses in the years ahead.

We need to continue to do brilliant things on our traditional channels and services. To keep taking risks, and bringing people together around big events and great programmes.

And we also need to be truly outstanding in the digital space - where our audiences increasingly are, where we face huge competition for their attention, and where we have the chance to serve them in incredible new ways.

By 2022, we will need to be as creative, innovative, and brilliant digitally as we have always been - and will continue to be - in the linear world.

The world in 2022

Of course, we can’t yet be sure what the world in 2022 will look like. But we are sure of the technological forces now shaping it.

First, Voice is going to be a key way we interact with media, search for content, and find what we want.

Amazon, Apple, Google and others are investing heavily in a voice-controlled future, and we’re working hard here too. Already we have news and radio services on Amazon Alexa and Google 主播大秀 and we can all imagine how speaking to our devices - in effect having a conversation with them - might enhance our services and benefit audiences.

The 主播大秀 has the best audio in the world, so how great would it be to be able to search our archive, summon up a programme you love, a presenter you admire, or even a favourite recipe - all just with a few words?

Our teams are looking at how quickly this could happen, and the kind of creative opportunities it’s opening up to us.

We’re doing the same with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Experimenting with how giving people a greater sense of presence could help them better to understand - and engage with - news and current affairs, science, history, and natural history.

I’ve seen it for myself. I can tell you that being transported back to the world as it was 100 million years ago - and having a look at the biggest ever dinosaur with the great David Attenborough - seeing the way it breathed, ate and moved - was an experience I’ll never forget.

Likewise, the spacewalk that I’m sure some of you have done in our Blue Room is astonishing stuff - it gives you a real sense of the possibilities.

We don’t yet know how mainstream VR and AR will be, but I think they’re likely to be a really powerful part of how we tell our stories in future.

You’ll be hearing a lot more about this over the summer, when we’ll be launching our own VR studio.

But - if you want to pick out one thing that is going to change and challenge how we operate - that area, I believe, is Artificial Intelligence. And by that I mean machine learning and the use of data.

Data is already transforming our world - it’s what coal was to the industrial revolution. I saw a brilliant presentation recently from our iPlayer team on how we are using it to make the experience better. And there’ll be plenty more to come.

Because, increasingly, success in our industry will be defined by the richness of the data we gather from our audiences, and how effectively we use machine learning to give them a better, more personal service.

Together with the rollout of 5G mobile networks, all this is likely to mean a radically different experience - a world that’s fully mobile AND fully connected.

We’re already starting to see the extraordinary possibilities:

• For health - cancer screenings; systems using artificial intelligence that spot changes in cells that could otherwise be missed.
• For education - interactive, immersive learning, and teachers who can tell where students are struggling from real-time analysis of their note-taking.

By 2022, as many as 50 billion devices could be connected worldwide, from our homes and cars to streetlamps and parking places, many requiring continuous data.

The world of being guided to a parking spot in a driverless car, while live streaming immersive coverage of Glastonbury or the FA Cup final may not be too far away. And for our audiences, instantaneous, high-quality streaming on any device, at home or on the move; immersive viewing which - because of data - can be designed to suit each of us as individuals.

A personalised, uniquely tailored 主播大秀

This is the world that is right now being shaped by the giants of the US - the ‘big five’ tech companies of Silicon Valley. And this is the world in which we have to compete to ensure that our audiences continue to choose us in the years ahead.

That’s why, when we look to reinventing ourselves for the future, personalisation is so fundamental. It’s at the core of so many of the priorities we have set ourselves: from reinventing iPlayer, to reaching 20 million members, to revitalising our education mission.

Like our plans for 主播大秀 Bitesize, providing every child in the UK with tailored and targeted learning that can help bring out their best, whoever and wherever they are.

All this is going to require a fundamental reshaping of the 主播大秀’s culture and how we work. We have to make the shift from being a broadcaster that speaks to our audiences to being a service that is shaped by them and designed around their wants and needs.

That means being much more entrepreneurial and light on our feet - so that we can respond to technological developments and their impact on audiences. It means using the data our audiences provide to improve continuously what we offer and build a 主播大秀 that is better than ever.

And because we expect those who sign in to spend far more time with the 主播大秀 than those who don’t, it also means we’ll be building a 主播大秀 that is better value than ever.

What could this look like?

So what could this look like?

I just want to pick out a few ways in which I think personalisation is likely to redefine how audiences experience us - the 主播大秀.

First, at the moment, there are many ways to find us in the digital space. I think, by our centenary, a lot of us are going to want a single gateway - a much simpler way of finding everything you want from the 主播大秀. All your TV and Radio, all your news, sport, music, drama, children’s, available through one point of entry - with a single sign in.

I don’t think you’ll need to deal with different apps or different brands, just all your 主播大秀 services together in one place, all talking to each other and organised around you. All personalised to your likes and loves, the time of day or week, and even what mood you are in.

Second, a seamless experience of the 主播大秀. All our content and services available across all your devices, so you can start watching or listening on one and pick it up on any other - whether at home or on the move - or even on your holiday abroad.

At present, when you use our apps they don’t talk to one another. In future, our systems and our architecture will work as one. All coordinated, all speaking to each other - and to you.

Third, instant discovery. We need to have developed world-class systems for discovering content, offering instant access to the whole of the 主播大秀 and our archives.

You will be able to find your way round intuitively and with ease, and explore everything we have - plus everything we bring together from our partners and the UK’s finest institutions of knowledge and learning.

Fourth, programmes that adapt to you.

Our teams have already been leading on work that allows programmes to change in response to who you are and what you need, whether that means shorter versions to suit your commute; choosing a presenter using sign language if that works better for you; or even adapting a cookery programme to reflect the ingredients you have available.

And, the final point I’d make about the future is that I believe everybody will be able to take part in what we do.

Our ultimate goal is for everyone in the country to be signed into the 主播大秀. We don’t want them just to sign in, but also join in. Tell us what they want. Directly influence our decisions. Actively take part.

Programmes like Springwatch and Stargazing Live have shown how brilliantly our audiences respond when we invite people with a passion to join forces with our experts. By 2022, we’ll have built on these communities.

I want us to do so much more in letting audiences help create, shape, and curate our content, so they can become their own schedulers, our next advisers, our future innovators.

How will we get there?

Now, there’s a lot to take in.

A personalised 主播大秀 will be our greatest leap since iPlayer, and that’s why we have put it right at the top of our agenda.

As you know, we’ve already started introducing mandatory sign in, and over the weeks and months ahead, we will be setting out our next major steps forward.

Just today, we have announced an extra £34 million for our children’s services over the next three years. It’s a great example of our ‘ride two horses’ strategy - allowing us to keep investing in the most popular children’s channels in the country. But also to raise our ambition massively - digitally - offering more personal journeys, more interactive capabilities, and more enhanced experiences for even more children.

It’s the biggest new investment in Children’s for a generation and it’s going to help us reinvent what we’re able to do for our youngest, and some of our most inspirational, audiences.

Later this month, we will be introducing more personalised homepages on 主播大秀 iPlayer.

Over the summer, we’ll make iPlayer radio more personal too, and soon we’ll also launch personalised iPlayer mobile notifications.

So already we are doing a lot to create a personalised 主播大秀 to complement the excellence - the ambition - we show in our linear services.

Conclusion

I believe we have a great opportunity before us. Because, as we move towards our second century, the 主播大秀 is becoming more important, and more relevant to this country - not less.

Truth is increasingly under assault. The role we play as the country’s trusted guide is increasingly vital.

Society feels fragmented and divided. What we do to bring the country together and reflect all its voices is more and more essential.

The role we play as the engine room of British creativity, the champion of British content, and the key to the UK’s cultural influence abroad is ever more invaluable. And what sets us apart is that public service magic, where in our core we know we’re different.

It makes me think of Ed Murrow’s great speech on television: “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box.”

The technology changes, but our mission remains the same - and so does the creative challenge.

We have always been pioneers. Now we need to be pioneers of personalisation. But we’re not trying to sell anyone anything, so we need to do it in a very public service way. To create the algorithm for public service content. Not telling audiences “what customers like you bought”, but using our powers of curation to serve them what they might like and they need to know.

Bringing them what they love, but also surprising them with content they may grow to love. Using all our skills as marketers, designers, technologists, schedulers and commissioners, as well as producers of content so that they don’t just vanish down a rabbit hole of their own preoccupations and prejudices.

So that we inform, educate, and entertain - but also truly inspire. It’s what made us unique - and uniquely loved - in our first century. And it’s what will set us apart and secure our success in the second.

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