BBC Charter

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

The BBC has an exceptional history as a technological innovator. It is one of its core undertakings, yet less than 3% of contributors to the public consultation commented on it and there have been grumblings that, in these days of digital tech, innovation is no longer an appropriate task for the BBC. What we once thought of as broadcast and programming has now been conflated with other forms of communication, both commercial and personal, into a single notion of content delivered on multiple platforms and devices. The purposes and the values that govern the creation and delivery of this content are generally opaque and throw up increasing ethical and practical issues that are never going to diminish. In these times, the BBC has a unique role to play not only as a trusted content provider but by developing and building cutting-edge communication technology of behalf of the licence fee payer.