Pat Younge is a former chief creative officer of BBC Television and a Non Executive Director at ITV Studios Ltd. Amongst his many roles he’s also currently Chair of the Cardiff University governing body and runs his own production company. In our interview we discussed why he is also chair of the British Broadcasting Challenge - why it was set up, the future of public service broadcasting, funding and local journalism. We reflect on his career, why he received elocution lessons and how diversity in broadcasting has changed. We also touch upon the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.

"I, as a black person, also have a real empathy with what Jewish staff members are going through....... If you are a Jew working at the BBC or a Jewish person in the UK, when you see those scenes from Gaza—the dreadful, horrific things that Hamas did, and I have no problems calling that a terrorist attack—I can understand why a Jewish person will see those things in a very different way. Someone who doesn't have the lived experience or the family intergenerational experience of what it's like to be targeted for something you have no control over."

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Greg Childs worked for over 25 years at the BBC, mainly as a director, producer and executive producer of children’s programmes. He created the first Children’s BBC websites and, as Head of Children’s Digital, developed and launched the children’s channels, CBBC and CBeebies. Greg left the BBC in 2004 and worked across other broadcasters. He's now Director of The Children’s Media Foundation and Editorial Director of the Children’s Media Conference. We discuss the crisis in children’s TV programming, it's decline in UK media, the importance of it, funding and the regulation of tech giants.

"ITV have admitted to us that when they took the decision to shut down CITV channel and move it all online, they were getting programme viewing figures of around 4000 children per programme."

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It was once aid that the five most terrifying words in the political lexicon were “Michael Crick is in reception”. Michael has worked extensively across the main public service broadcasters – starting at ITV. He then moved to Channel 4 becoming political correspondent and Washington Correspondent. He joined the BBC as a reporter at Panorama and eventually became political editor of Newsnight before returning to Channel 4 News as political correspondent. He has now stood back from daily journalism to concentrate on writing and commentating. We discuss being kicked off GB News, impartiality in public service broadcasting, Newsnight, Nigel Farage and we reflect on his extensive career.

“It spends too much of its time, I would argue, dealing with questions of race and gender and trans rights. And if you will just listen to Radio 4, you would think that the number of ethnic minorities in this country were say, half the population and I think there's a liberal left leaning amongst the makers of BBC Radio 4.”

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Sophie Chalk is the policy adviser for VLV (Voice of the Listener and Viewer), an independent charity representing the interests of the audience in supporting high-quality broadcasting in the UK. Earlier this year, they appeared before the DCMS select committee’s inquiry into the future of Public Service Broadcasting. Have their concerns been taken on board and reflected in the Media Bill, which was announced in the King's Speech on Tuesday? We discuss the implications of the bill on public service broadcasting including prominence, regulation, local radio, content, and impartiality.

"There's a lot of concern about impartiality regulation at the moment. Ofcom is overwhelmed with inquiries that it's running into GB News. We think there is a real opportunity to define more closely what ‘news’ is. But the government hasn't picked up on that opportunity yet."



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Ritula Shah spent 35 years at the BBC as a producer on 'Today,' presenting 'The World Today,' 'Woman’s Hour,' 'PM,' and chairing 'Any Questions.' However, Ritula is best known for her decade-long tenure as the presenter of the ‘World Tonight' on Radio 4 until earlier this year. We discuss why she left, covering the Israel/Hamas conflict, impartiality, preserving 'Newsnight' at the expense of successful Radio 4 strand programmes, and presenter pay.

“I think that many of my colleagues are rather overpaid.”

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Richard Sambrook, the former BBC Director of News, the World Service and Global News is now emeritus Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University. We discuss Tim Davie, the BBC director general's appearance before the 1922 parliamentary committee, the BBC's coverage of the Israel/Gaza conflict, their news gathering process and transparency, BBC cuts and their impact on services and journalism training.

“The BBC tends to be overly defensive. That's it’s kind of default position. But I think it's increasingly important, they are able to get out there and explain what they're doing.” 

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Edward Stourton has worked in broadcasting for more than forty years, and has been a foreign correspondent for the BBC, ITN and Channel Four. He was a one of the main presenters of Radio 4’s Today programme for ten years and still regularly presents The World at One, The World this Weekend and Analysis. He’s also been the main presenter of Sunday – the radio 4 programme which looks at the religious and ethical issues of the week. He's recently written a book about it with his producer Amanda Hancox which we discuss as well as another very personal book Ed has published this year called 'Confessions:Life Re-examined'.

“I am endlessly impressed by the young people I work with, because it seems to me, they've got absolutely the sort of hunger and curiosity and healthy scepticism and love of the job that I like to think I and my mates had when we were all starting off all those years ago. And they don't dismiss things, they ask. They want to know about Hamas, they want to know about what most of us would consider its distorted religious inspiration.”

“I think I'm just so soaked in Catholicism, that it's just me and trying to drag it out of me would be a hideously painful process. So, I just think it's easier to acquiesce is my sort of my watchword, just give in and believe - it's just easier. And it's helpful, I think it does provide you with a structure and approach to life.”

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Roger Mosey was head of BBC TV News and is a former editor of the Today programme. We discuss the BBC's reluctance to use the term "terrorist" and the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.

“You have to recognise that you can't be morally neutral, you can't think that everything is a 50 50 call. So it's tough doing it. I think this is about the most difficult thing the BBC has to cover, after many years, decades of difficulty in covering Ireland.”

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By the time he was 40, Sir Mark Thompson had held some of the top jobs at the BBC. He went on to become Chief Executive of Channel 4 before returning to the corporation as Director General in 2004. In 2012 he went on to The New York Times where he turned around its fortunes. Another challenge now beckons - CEO and chair of CNN, the US news channel where he starts shortly. Roger Bolton talks to his former colleague about impartiality, free speech, BBC bias, democracy, public service broadcasting, religion, Russell Brand and Mark's career.

"I like rule breakers, I like bad boys, and the female equivalent of bad boys. In other words, people who break the rules, break convention, and speak for me."

"The United States is a country which continues to have a functioning indeed, at many levels, vibrant democracy. And interesting enough, I think there's a lot of lessons to teach the United Kingdom about democracy."

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Richard Ayre, former controller of BBC editorial policy and a former member of the OFCOM content board is now the chair of the independent press regulator Impress. On this week's programme we discuss the newly published BBC social media guidelines in response to the Gary Lineker controversy last March. We also look at Ofcom's regulation of GB News and the Russell Brand affair.

“Gary is a highly intelligent guy, the fact that he's welcomed these guidelines today, the fact that he never apologised or rode back from the things he said six months ago, suggests to me that if he's welcoming the guidelines, he doesn't think they would stop him saying what he's quite proud of having said six months ago.”

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