THOMPSON CLAIMS BBC HAVE NOT LOST THEIR WAY

BBC Director of Television Mark Thompson has promised to fight hard for the future of public service broadcasting and claimed that the BBC have not lost their way.
During his speech at the Royal Television Society dinner on November 13 Thompson resurrected the nightly news issue, citing BBC One’s news success as a reason for the ITC to rethink their compromise deal with ITV.
Thompson’s speech focused mainly on the changes to BBC One, both in its scheduling and restructuring, over the past month. He said: “Lorraine Heggessey, is now in place and she’s already thrown herself into the enormous task of creatively renewing BBC ONE, building on the terrific work that Peter Salmon did and which is on show in the schedule this autumn”.
Commenting on the recent rehash of BBC One’s schedule Thompson stated that increasing “quality and originality in some programme areas” was what BBC One needed right now. Thompson also raised the point that £100 million of new money would be invested to construct a richer schedule for BBC One on which Lorraine Heggessey is currently working.
He stressed plans for a clearer portfolio of BBC television channels in a multichannel world and affirmed the proposed creation of two children’s channels as proof of public service television adapted for a new age.
Thompson then tackled the issues surrounding BBC Two and where it stands in the reshuffled schedule. Thompson said: “BBC Two is also on the move, as it should be: TV is now changing so rapidly that a strategy which worked five, even three years ago, can now feel hopelessly out-of-date. I believe that Jane Root is leading BBC TWO in the right direction, creating a channel which is more mature, more consistent and which will fit perfectly into our new portfolio of channels. But TWO also remains a channel, which can and must continue to make creative breakthroughs, and it is - in commissions from ‘Coupling’ to ‘Nice Girl’ to my own favourite programme of the year, ‘Marion and Geoff’.”
However, the overnights for ‘Panorama’ showed that last Sunday night’s programme presented by Mariella Frostrup on Virtual Television had shed one million viewers by the end of the slot.
In his Monday evening speech Thompson noted that documentary programme's figures were prone to fluctuation depending on various factors such as the topic under discussion. He said: “We need to monitor the success of Panorama in its new slot on Sunday nights.”