Tony Hall

Today, I want to talk about one thing: content, programmes – the reason we’re all here. In this country we have a really vibrant creative ecology of broadcasting. It’s a great national success story.

But the question I want to talk about this afternoon is whether one part of that ecology will continue. Will we carry on making content to the degree and quality that we do now?

I’m concerned that, in all the arguments and debate about the BBC’s Charter, in a decade’s time we might look back and say that we missed something crucial – a big trend.

John Whittingdale was introduced by Convention Chair Tony Hall as “a rare beast, a politician who watches television”, and he began his speech by reminding delegates that, for him, this convention was no baptism of fire.

His first appearance at Cambridge came 12 years ago as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture; he had set up his own panel to review the future funding of the BBC. Then, as now, the corporation’s Charter and licence fee were the key issues on the agenda.

When Tony Hall was appointed BBC Director-General, he pledged to widen the corporation’s recruitment net by ensuring that 1% of its public-service workforce were apprentices by 2016.

He reached the target two years ahead of schedule. By the end of 2014, 177 apprentices were employed across the UK in departments ranging from local radio to business management.

BBC apprenticeships last between 12 months and three years. Participants on the production scheme undertake placements on programmes in addition to training with the BBC Academy.

The preliminary programme for this year's RTS Cambridge Convention has been announced. 

The convention, held on a biennial basis, brings together leading figures from the television and its related industry.

This year's event looks forward to television in 2020, focusing on the challenge for content, creativity and business models.

The programme features sessions covering foreign ownership of UK production, the rise of the smart phone in television viewing, and the influence of talent in programme-making.

Unemployed young people can benefit from the BBC’s new Make It Digital traineeship.

From today, 5,000 opportunities will be available in 60 locations across the UK to enhance young people’s digital and employability skills. 

Unemployed people aged 16 to 24 year olds and who have fewer than two A Levels can register their interest through their local Jobcentre Plus. 

The BBC has created a heritage trail celebrating its landmark buildings in London.

Director-General Tony Hall and BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie were joined yesterday by entertainment legend Bruce Forsyth and Strictly Come Dancing presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman to unveil a heritage plaque at BBC Worldwide's new Television Centre headquarters.

Five further plaques will be unveiled at other London locations over the coming months, all recognising key moments in British broadcasting history.

John Whittingdale is a conundrum. A politician who can seem old beyond his 55 years, he has been in Parliament since 1992, nine years longer than David Cameron. And, although only a few years older than his boss, Whittingdale’s style and political heritage are soundly late-Thatcher era, with a voting record that is pro-fox hunting and anti-gay marriage.

Yet, the freshly minted Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport also confounds stereotypes of the shire fogey with a mild interest in Gilbert and Sullivan.

Emailing me directions to his flat in Earls Court, Newsnight’s Lead Presenter, Evan Davis, mentions the "fascinating cluster" of estate agents where he lives. "Fascinating" and "estate agents" appear infrequently in the same sentence, but this is classic Evan Davis.

For an insight into the day job of the BBC Director-General two years into his role, I pop into Tony Hall's plate-glass eyrie at New Broadcasting House. I arrive in the aftermath of one of the regular encyclicals that DGs dispense.

He's sung the praises of the BBC's place in a "thriving, free and competitive market", an alternative to what a colleague terms the "Joni Mitchell" school of heartstring-tugging about the Beeb's innate brilliance.