Why I became a Governor

Having retired after a long career in broadcasting and the media, I felt as though a lifetime of knowledge and experience was wasting away. So when Gavyn Davies resigned, I agonised for a while and then decided that I did have something to contribute to the new generation of broadcasters, and having always believed passionately in the BBC, that I might be of some use to it in that crisis. Fortunately for me, the Government and the appointments panel agreed.

I really feel that a BBC of real size and strength and power is vital to the broadcasting ecology of this country. With everything fragmenting, we need continuity. We need the choice that the BBC offers. We need an organisation dedicated solely to high quality broadcasting, where the interests of viewers and listeners are the only consideration. We don't have to think about shareholders or advertisers, we don't have to worry about subscriptions, and so on. We can just get on with making programmes, concerned only with what's in the public interest.

Broadcasting has changed so much, and I honestly think the BBC is more important now than it's ever been. When I first went into independent television in 1973, ITV had an effective monopoly, and public service obligations it had to meet, so in many ways there really wasn't that much difference between it and the BBC. Whereas today, with the way the private sector is going, with the fragmentation of revenues and so on, they can't but chase the ratings and the revenue, and inevitably their public service colours are gradually fading. That's not a criticism, just a recognition of reality. But I think it makes the role of the BBC - the distinctive role of the BBC - ever more discernible and ever more tangible.

The BBC is a trusted purveyor of impartial news. It has never been in the business of propaganda. And the constitution of the BBC, creaky and in need of modernisation as it may be, has nevertheless worked effectively over the years to protect it from interference from vested interests, whether private capital, the government of the day, trades unions, whoever. And it's not like it hasn't been threatened many times. From Gilligan through Thatcher over the Falklands, right back to Harold Wilson and Eden, everyone's had a crack at the BBC... but it's always managed to retain its independence. And I think that's a large part of what people pay for when they pay for the BBC. They'd rather get it for free, of course. But by paying for it, a large part of the benefit they gain is that independence. It's the Governors who have been the guarantors of that. And without it the BBC, frankly, would not be worth having.

When I was at Channel 4 I used to say that it was the BBC that kept the rest of us honest. And I think that's still a crucial part of what the BBC means. It sets the benchmarks. In impartiality of news; in quality of production; in the ways it nurtures talent; in the way it performs its role as the greatest patron of the arts in this country. All of that matters enormously. And we take it very seriously.