"Good afternoon everyone, it’s brilliant to be here with you today.

I know you hear from newly appointed Cabinet Ministers that becoming Culture Secretary is a dream job.

But in the last few months I’ve had the chance to meet some of the most creative people I’ve ever met in my life. And to see what they’re building and creating in every single part of the UK. 

And that’s just Hacker T Dog.

Seriously though. There was a reason my first meeting with the BBC was with Hacker T in Salford.

Because this puppet dog, who happens to hail from Wigan – which is the greatest place on earth - has a special place in my household and in so many others. 

And children’s TV is one of the things your industry and our country is brilliant at. 

It gives people and communities in towns like mine a connection to what and who they see on the screen and a belief that the broadcasters behind them are part of their story and belong to them.

And I want to talk to you today about why that matters so much.

And why I believe that this has to be core to this industry that has much to celebrate but is in a challenging period. 

A technology and media revolution…without a clear strategy for how we equip ourselves for this era.

There is a choice ahead of us. Whether we choose to be the last guardians of this chapter, or the first pioneers of the next.

So today I’m laying out how our new government will go about helping to create the conditions for this new era.

Not just patching up broken models and ways of working.

But ensuring you have the right framework, conditions and backing to thrive well into the future.

And being clear about the change we need from you in return.

A lot has happened since the last Labour SoS addressed you back in 2009.

Back then there was a lively debate raging about how to switch to digital terrestrial television, now the debate is about whether to switch away.

In 2009 a DeepMind AI bot winning a chess match made headline news; now we are grappling with the unprecedented reach of AI and what it means for our creative industries.

Back then 11 million newspapers were sold every day in the UK; today more than half of us are getting our news from Tik Tok and other social media channels.

Today we don’t need a printing press to spread news. We just need to reach for the phones in our pockets.

And on top of all this change, you’ve had to contend with a global pandemic, a downturn in TV advertising and needless culture wars for the last five years.

The world has changed, opening up for you new challenges and endless possibilities. 

And I think if we’re honest, every single one of us have struggled, in our own ways, to navigate this new terrain.

All of you in this room will know, the challenges thrown up by new technology are not new.

The invention of the printing press in the 1400s led to more books published in the following fifty years than in the 100 years before. It proved to be a great leveller and a great disrupter.

Suppression became impossible. The gatekeepers lost power to the people. The idea of universal truth itself was up for grabs. Ideas spread, authority was challenged.

But just as that power was used to inform, empower and enlighten it was also used to spread misinformation and chaos. It might sound familiar.

Now, just as then, the dogmas of the past are no longer fit for the stormy present. 

And I am determined to work with all of you to steer us through.

It begins, for me, with resetting the relationship between government and the media.

It has been a dark divisive decade, where we’ve found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another, and so many of you have found yourselves at the centre of the storm. It is my firm belief that as a country, we are weaker for it.

So my promise to you is that for as long as we are in power, the era of government stoked culture wars is over.

Politicians will always have a view about who and what you feature. But it is not our job to decide. And there is a good reason for it. Because being truthful, not neutral is the job.

Reflecting on some of these controversies a few years ago, Christiane Amanpour said “I learnt long ago covering the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia never to equate victim with aggressor, never to equate a false moral or factual equivalence because then you are accomplice to the most unspeakable crimes and consequences. I believe in being truthful not neutral and I believe we must stop banalizing the truth.”

That is not just your right, but your duty. It is crucial to whether this country succeeds. Because without the ability to speak truth to power, to hold up a mirror to the way government operates, we will never remedy the catastrophic collapse of trust in politics itself, the only tool that working class people in our country have ever had to create change. And after the last decade it is in crisis.

And let me be clear. We believe in public service broadcasting. 

For too long the Tories came to conferences like this and talked about recognising the value of public service broadcasters, while undermining trust, assaulting credibility and sowing uncertainty.

Our Government will be different. 

We’re wasting no time in handing you the tools you need. 

Profound changes to how and where people get their news really matter.

When warring political tribes with separate news sources and information feeds - construct their own realities it costs us dear, it costs us the ability to understand one another.

We’ve seen how pernicious, unchecked disinformation fanned the flames of violence this summer in our towns and cities.

Peter Kyle and the team at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are already tackling incitement and disinformation through the Online Safety Act.

We inherited a Media Act from the previous government with important reforms to the regulation of television and radio services that will ensure that as the way we consume media changes, the landscape changes with them.

That is why we established Ofcom in 2002 and that’s why we've empowered Ofcom to start implementing the Media Act today.

Stephanie Peacock, our media minister, signed the regulations last month and today I'm writing to Ofcom to kick off their review of the Video on Demand Market.

This review will lay the ground for a more level playing field for all mainstream services, with video-on-demand services regulated to the same high standards we expect from traditional broadcasters.

And, as importantly, it’ll maintain the prominence of public service content.

Ernest Bevin once said he wanted to be Minister for Labour for 50 years. Not literally – but because the labour settlement he was building with the British people was one built to last. 

In the same vein. I want the work we do together to lay the foundations for and secure the future of public service broadcasting until well into the second half of this coming century. 

No more government by gimmick and press release but the hard yards of rewiring how we do things in this country.

It starts with the most fundamental question facing us – the future of the BBC.

Which fills a role in our national life that cannot be filled elsewhere.

Every TV project I’ve visited as culture secretary has a contribution from the BBC behind it somewhere along the line, whether it’s content, training or commissioning.

For too long the BBC has been caught between the state and the market – with obligations that create an unlevel playing field but increasingly reliant on commercial income. The licence fee – which we are committed to retaining at a very minimum for the rest of this charter period - is increasingly challenging. 

It’s my view that for too long Ministers have patched this up, with pressure to commercialise sitting uneasily alongside the BBC's ability to provide content for all audiences. And I believe that this is untenable. And that the importance of the obligations placed on the BBC – especially when it comes to the World Service - shows the vital need for sustainable public funding.

The next charter review has to ensure the BBC doesn’t just survive but thrives for decades to come.

As part of that the most important consideration is how to ensure the public feel ownership of their national broadcaster. That it belongs to and is responsive to them. That it enriches their lives, wherever they live and whatever their background. A truly national broadcaster in which all of us have a stake.

And if we’re honest that is not just a challenge for the BBC.

It is our ambition that when we turn to face the country again in 5 years’ time we face a country far more at ease with itself, that can celebrate its rich diversity, and where people know that their contribution is seen and valued, wherever they live and whatever their background.

I cannot emphasise strongly enough how important you all are to that effort.

For far too long too many people have not seen themselves reflected in our national story. 

But never underestimate the power of Derry Girls, All Creatures Great and Small or Queer as Folk. These are shows that go hand in hand with notion of public service broadcasting.

A few years ago the Royal Exchange, one of my favourite theatres, put on a play about the women of the miners strike.

The women on one of my most deprived council estates hired a coach and went off to see it. 

This was a story that had been told so many times, about their lives, without them in it. And it was magical to see their reaction when they were written back into the centre of their own story. 

As several of the sessions today have demonstrated, there are some great examples of this from your industry. 

The decision by C4 to relocate to Leeds has, Tracy Brabin was telling me last week, been a gamechanger for West Yorkshire. Just as the decision of the BBC to move to Media City all those years ago has opened up opportunities, and voices on the news to people outside of the M25.

There is power in regional TV.

Without Lucy Meacock, a North West institution, and Granada Reports - who, after the groundbreaking documentary Hillsborough returned to the story over and over again - there would never have been justice for the 97.

My stepdad was a working-class kid from Bury, first in his family to stay on at school after 12 and go on to university. He ended up becoming editor of World in Action for over twenty years. He knew until the day he died that this was only possible because of the opportunities local newspapers and Granada TV provided.

And for all of the efforts made by many of you in this room, it should shame us all that television is one of the most centralised and exclusive industries in the UK.

Because who tells the story determines the story that is told. 

So I want to ask.

If you aren’t commissioning content from every part of the country – towns and villages as well as major cities – why not?

If you bus people in rather than recruit locally, stop it. Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not.

And if you’ve moved jobs and people and content, but the heads of departments and commissioners are all still in an office in London, do something about it.

8% is the proportion of working class people in TV.

23% is the proportion of commissions made by companies based outside of London.

30% is the fall in trust in media over the last decade. 

None of this is inevitable. I know because I’ve met the pioneers who are trying to change it.

I was privileged to meet Steven Knight recently to hear about his work - and I'm pleased he was able to share some of that same story with you earlier.

Because what he is doing in Birmingham - converting once great factories, to create the Birmingham Film Academy with the University of Birmingham - is making a huge difference.

He’s investing in skills to make sure there are opportunities that benefit the local community.

They have a plan to recruit 20% of workforce from the most deprived areas and build affordable housing so they can live in walking distance of work.

And he was at pains to tell me how much he benefits from the wider broadcasting ecosystem, particularly the BBC, whose investment in skills underpins so much that others are able to do. 

But for him this is not just a passion, it’s good business sense. His local workforce is an asset that attracts people. And it is our determination to walk alongside you as partners, to create the conditions in which you can achieve it.

Our Government is considering what more we can do to help these incredible projects to succeed.

But frankly if you don’t know why the film industry is so attracted to the beauty of Sunderland, or why the arts sector is buzzing in Bradford, or the potential to TV of the Welsh Valleys, it is most likely because you’ve never been there. 

And you have no right to call yourself a public service broadcaster. Because public service means serving the whole people, recognising their contribution and reflecting them in our national story. 

I know it isn’t easy. The costs are short term, the payoff is long term. In Westminster there are still, incredibly, people who grumble about Media City – even after all these years and so much success.

But there is so much at stake and it is my belief that an industry that belongs to the nation is an industry that will not just survive but thrive. Where the possibility of solving the sustainability issues is evidenced by the fact that the nation is behind your industry.

And just think what we will create. Through us doing our bit and you doing yours. With a new relationship based on respect for one another. A television industry that leads the world and is the pride of all of Britain. Thriving well into the latter half of this Century. That is what we will build, together."

Lisa Nandy delivered her keynote at the RTS London Convention 2024. Watch the speech in full below: