THE BBC will come under scrutiny at this weekend’s Edinburgh International Television Festival, with both past and present employees preparing to cast a critical eye over the Corporation’s activities.
Mark Thompson, the new Director-General, will give his first major speech on Sunday morning, detailing the broadcaster’s plans in the run-up to the negotiation of its next ten-year charter, due in 2006.
Mr Thompson is expected to discuss the BBC’s decision to pull back from excessive commercialism. The broadcaster has already admitted that it has produced too much copycat programming, and that many of its commercial activities serve no public interest.
However, Mr Thompson faces the risk of being overshadowed by Andrew Gilligan, the journalist whose reporting helped to cost the job of Greg Dyke, the Director-General’s predecessor. Mr Gilligan is planning to celebrate “journalistic independence”.
The festival’s MacTaggart keynote speech will be given by John Humphrys, the presenter of Radio 4’s Today, who is noted for watching little television. As with Mr Gilligan, Mr Humphrys is widely expected to refer to the Hutton inquiry into the BBC’s reporting, a subject that Corporation executives desperately want to see dropped.
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Elsewhere at the festival, Charles Allen, ITV’s chief executive, faces a one-to-one interview, in which he will be asked to explain his plans for saving costs and improving viewing figures.
The third channel’s controller of programmes, Nigel Pickard, is also appearing, under pressure to explain why he has had to pull frontline programmes such as the Simply the Best gameshow from the peak-time schedule.
Simon Cowell will explain how talent shows have earned him £45 million. Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Simpson, murder victim in the O. J. Simpson case, is to debate whether cameras should be allowed in court with Lord Falconer, the minister responsible for the issue.
Finally, kiss-and-tell celebrities Rebecca Loos and Monica Lewinsky, are to appear in a debate on Saturday about the acquisition of celebrity “exclusives”, joined, inevitably, by Max Clifford.