RTS Announces London Conference Lineup

The Royal Television Society (RTS) has announced the line-up for its London Conference 2014, taking place on 9 September 2014 at Kings Place and focussing on the theme of 'Power, Politics and the Media'.

The conference is sponsored by STV and chaired by its CEO Rob Woodward. It will open with an International Keynote from Chase Carey, President and Chief Operating Officer, 21st Century Fox.
Matt Brittin, Google's Vice-President, Northern and Central Europe and Kevin Sutcliffe, Head of News Programming EU, VICE News will join Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, to discuss 'The Future You Don't Want To Face'. The session will look at how television on demand is challenging the industry's incumbent leaders.
'Tomorrow The World' will see Kirsty Wark ask Lorraine Heggessey, Kevin Lygo, MD of ITV Studios and Jim Ryan, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Liberty Global, whether we are on the verge of another re-shaping of the world media order.
The same will apply in the forthcoming 2015 UK general election. In a session entitled, Kingdom Not United, Newsnight's Laura Kuenssberg, John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, Gregor Poynton, Associate Director Digital at Portland Communications and Ross Colquhoun, Director of National Collective, the cultural movement for Scottish independence, will look at the impact of social media on the coming referendum.
Leaders of the three main providers will also be discussing the sustainability of TV news in the fully digital age. BBC Deputy Director of News & Current Affairs, Fran Unsworth is joined by John Hardie, CEO of ITN and John Ryley, Head of Sky News, in a session chaired by Stewart Purvis entitled 'Have I Got News For You?'
'In Whose IP Is It Anyway?', Alex Graham, Director of Big Eck Consulting, will discuss the battle for control of IP in creative production with Bryan Elsley, writer of Skins and the Channel 4 drama-format First Dates, and talent agent, Michael Foster.
In the afternoon sessions, Steve Hewlett will interview James Purnell, the BBC's Director of Strategy & Digital, about the Future Of The BBC. President of Discovery Networks International JB Perrette will deliver his Keynote – The Voyage of Discovery – and reveal, in the year the international business starts to outgrow the US one, what Discovery's plan is. Rob Woodward will also chair a Keynote session with Culture Minister Sajid Javid, who in his first major appearance as Secretary of State, will outline the government's plans for the television industry.
The day's final session, 'Enabling The Next Generation', will see Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive of BSkyB and Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, discuss how the media industry is going to find its next generation of talent in an area where they have to compete with Google, Facebook and Apple.

www.rts.org.uk

(IT/JP)