The key theme in David Liddiment's MacTaggart Lecture is that the soul of British television is in danger as a result of a battle for ratings in which ‘we're losing sight of the innate value of programmes’. But television is about more than ‘just putting bums on seats’ and broadcasters must seek to make television interesting, ambitious and diverse as well as popular. Liddiment argues that broadcasters ‘have to take risks’.

The BBC is the most powerful and dominant force in British broadcasting: £2.4 billion a year of public money and 43 per cent of all viewing and listening in UK homes. Its role in providing creative leadership is crucial: ‘this beast is the keeper of the soul of British television. No one else can do this job.’ But Liddiment is concerned that the BBC is losing sight of its cultural responsibilities in its ‘rush to beat the commercial competition at its own game’. This failure in turn reflects a failure in corporate governance. The ‘committee of part-timers’ known as the Governors must decide whether they are regulators or management: ‘they cannot be both’. There is a need for ‘a new way of governing the BBC that puts creative leadership back at the centre of its public purposes’.