Culture, Media and Sport Committee
8 July 2026
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Culture, Media and Sport Committee House of Commons
00:04 - 00:58
Speaker 2
Order, order. Welcome to this meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Today is the seventh oral evidence session of our BBC Royal Charter Review inquiry, and this is the day we get to quiz the BBC themselves. And we are joined for the first time by Matt Brittin, the Director General of the BBC, and not the first time, a frequent, a frequent guest of the Select Committee, Dr. Samir Shah CBE, who is the Chair of the BBC. Gentlemen, welcome to you both.
Thank you so much for joining us. Matt, I want to start the questions with you, please. You listed your three priorities in, in your staff email, and you talked about editorial excellence, you talked about being clear on your priorities, and you talked about making the strongest possible argument for our future. What is your argument for the BBC?
00:58 - 02:03
Speaker 4
Well, thank you. I'm just six and a half weeks in, so I've been doing a lot of listening and learning, but also before joining, I had the chance to tour the country and see what the BBC was doing in the front line, from local radio to drama productions, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales. And I think the creative engine and powerhouse for the UK is a key part of the case for the BBC. Its reach for audiences, if you think about it, it's quite remarkable when we've got infinite choice in our pockets that the BBC still reaches 94% of UK adults every week. It's pretty remarkable.
It's pretty remarkable that it's the most trusted, despite some of the recent issues, the most trusted news provider domestically and internationally. So I see those as huge strengths. But I also see, you know, we're in a week where ITV and Sky are merging, we've seen Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount merging. The shift in consumer behavior around media and the concentration in power that you heard from other witnesses about, the concentration of power in some of the American and Chinese players means we're at a critical moment. And I see the jeopardy for the BBC, but I also see the strengths.
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