Abstract
A former managing director of the Corporation, Will Wyatt urges the BBC to reinvent a sense of discovery for the on-demand world and show it can still tempt people to new experiences, lead them off the safe path of the known into the pastures of the undiscovered. And Wyatt observes: "Both [Director-General Mark] Thompson and Tessa Jowell urge the BBC to 'frame your mind to mirth and merriment', to entertain. The audience have never thought otherwise. I worry, though, when I hear of 'fewer dramas with longer runs'. That is not a recipe for risk taking, extending range and encouraging new talent. It's a conventional schedule building strategy. Not good enough. Can Thompson create the conditions within which programme commissioners feel trusted and free and do not slip back into old, fearful and understandable habits, going for the safe, the imitative and the well tried?"
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