Simon Pitts

Local content offers a way forward for UK broadcasters and producers – in television, big is not always best. In the “new era of media”, claimed media cartographer Evan Shapiro during an effervescent presentation: “The user is in complete control of what they’re watching.”

Focusing on the big tech players that dominate his map of the most valuable media and tech companies, he said: “You can’t beat them at scale. In fact, in many cases, you have to work with them and compete with them simultaneously… you have to both bear-hug them and keep them at arm’s length.

Day one of COP26 in my adopted city of Glasgow. I moved to Scotland nearly four years ago to join producer-broadcaster STV and I’ve grown to love it here. 

One of the big plusses is that I get to commute to work by bike, not tube, and I’m certainly glad of it today because COP has closed all the roads. 

The only downside to cycling is that you invariably get soaked. Even by Glasgow’s standards, today’s rainfall is biblical. Some would say it’s highly symbolic for the start of a global climate conference. 

Audiences flock to the BBC during moments of national importance. That’s the received wisdom, anyway. Think World Cup finals, the Queen’s Speech or big news days. After a career in commercial TV, I’d become resigned to this. Until I moved to Scotland, that is.

It’s different here. Partly, that’s because Scots watch more TV than anyone else in the UK, an average of 25 more minutes per day last year, to be precise (thanks for asking).

The new fellows represented a broad range of television industry talent.

Included were two of the most influential women in British TV – writer Kay Mellor, best known for Band of Gold and In the Club, and the BBC’s Director of Content, Charlotte Moore.

Also receiving a fellowship was one of the doyens of natural history film making, Alastair Fothergill,

His credits include Sir David Attenborough’s The Trials of Life and Life In The Freezer.

Another new fellow was the much-feted independent producer Stephen Lambert.

Tom is the CEO of Virgin Media and a member of the Executive Leadership Team of parent company Liberty Global, the world’s largest international TV and broadband company. Tom joined Liberty Global in June 2013 following the acquisition of Virgin Media. During the previous two decades he worked for News Corporation in a variety of senior roles across the world. He started his career as a newspaper journalist in his native New Zealand, then in Australia, before becoming an adviser and spokesperson for the Federal Treasurer, the Honourable Paul Keating.

Comedian Hugh Dennis aired the thoughts of many trying to navigate the new television landscape when he introduced this session. In a video diary shown to conference delegates, he was seen stuck inside a room for a month. His task was to watch all the content available to modern audiences. 

“Watching telly used to be so easy,” he complained. “Four channels, maybe five – everyone watched the same thing in the same place at the same time, unless your family was at the cutting edge of technology and had a VCR.”