Live blog: Jay Hunt, BBC One controller

15.34: Welcome to our live blog of the controller interview with BBC One controller Jay Hunt.

15.36: "It was an incredibly refreshing experience," Hunt says of her time at Five. "I hugely enjoyed my time there."

15.43: "I think the channel's in rude health." Among the decisions she points to as her moves forward from the Fincham and Keating legacy are the extended Panorama on Primark and the stripping of Criminal Justice

15.45: "The self-flagellation can stop," says Hunt, saying the focus should be on programming.

15.47: Hunt mentions a desire to look for family entertainment for an early Saturday evening slot to hold an audience through Saturday peak. "I think talent shows play an incredibly important part of what we do," she says, refusing to "self-flagellate" about the format.

15.48: Asked about comedy, Hunt says she "does not feel the need" to test comedies on Two or Three before appearing on BBC One. "I am very hopeful that if there is a third series of Gavin and Stacey it would show on One."

15.49: She suggests 10.35pm on Sunday and Monday nights are useful periods to take creative risk.

15.51: Hunt is "actively looking" for comedies in the tradition of My Family.

15.52: Big names are "vital to the ecology" of BBC One. "They are key audience drivers, I feel very lucky to have them on the channel." However, she notes that new ideas do not require big talent to get commissioned. She reveals that Chris Evans will sit in for Adrian Chiles on The One Show when the latter is on holiday.

15.54: "Keeping key talent is important; I'm not in the business of driving up talent inflation."

15.55: Hunt notes that despite the budget cuts, she comes from Five which has a much smaller financial scale. "I don't think the cuts we've had will impact on our creative ambition."

15.56: She says BBC One's factual offering "needs quite a lot of work" despite it being "in rude health" on the channel; she suggests a return to "popular factual" to keep the channel "feeling contemporary and modern".

15.58: Hunt says BBC One has "not tried especially hard" in specialist factual and is an area she would like to focus on.

16.00: The BBC commissioning system is more responsive than when she left.

16.02: The average BBC One viewer is 52 years old; Hunt cautions that a "massive recalibration" to better appeal to younger audiences is inappropriate, but that there need to be ways of talking to younger people.

16.04: Hunt wants the person who inherits BBC One from her to have a channel that still appeals to audiences under the age of 52.

16.05: "I'm not suggesting that we fundamentally change the mix of programming," she says, but wants to "renew the heartland audience" and appeal, for example, to a 40-something mum of two.

16.07: Hunt praises Jane Tranter's drama commissioning team, and counters a question about what would happen if Tranter were to quit. "If Jane were to go, we would survive."

16.08: The Kennel Club special was originally commissioned for BBC Four but was "actively" brought by Hunt to the 9pm slot on BBC One.

16.10: "The performance of the Ten O'Clock News is formidable," says Hunt, praising the news service on BBC One.

16.11: "Sometimes we have to walk away," says Hunt about the absence of live football on the channel, noting that F1 will have some appeal to young audiences.

16.16: "Tomorrow's World isn't coming back." However, BBC One is looking for a popular science magazine show for the 7:30pm slot.

16.20: Hunt wants to find a "big arts landmark" for 2010-11, and says arts and culture on BBC One is an area of concern from a comfort perspective. "How does it evolve and continue to feel fresh and imaginative?"

16.21: "Bonekickers was... slightly flawed in bits of its execution," Hunt admits. No decision yet on whether it will be coming back, "hand on heart".

16.28: "I would like to think that the channel felt creatively ambitious - along the way we took risks, that producers felt supported taking risks," Hunt suggests as the criteria on which she would like to be judged a year from now.

Posted Saturday, August 23 at 15:34 by James

Watch our interview with Richard Woolfe

Yesterday we spoke to Richard Woolfe, controller of Sky1, Sky2 and Sky3, about his future plans for the channel. Is he glad to say goodbye to "Sky Onc"? Will the channel be picking up Dollhouse? And how does he feel about being called the "gayest man in TV" by Gok Wan? Click 'play' below to find out. He's married with kids, by the way.

Posted Saturday, August 23 at 15:27 by Neil

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Live blog: Peter Fincham, ITV director of television

13.59: Welcome to our live blog of the controller interview with ITV director of television Peter Fincham.

14.02: Asked what the differences are between BBC One and ITV, Fincham notes a big cultural difference. "ITV's a very different organisation from the BBC... the BBC is a spending organisation. There's plenty of pressures at the BBC... but that's thrown into very sharp relief at ITV."

14.05: "When you're at White City, you can do things purely because you think they're the right things to do," says Fincham, citing the decision to put Panorama back into peak. "I introduced an 8pm news bulletin because I thought it was too long to go from 6pm to 10pm without telling our audience the news headlines. You would couch those decisions in different terms at ITV."

14.07: "About a month ago, BBC One ran a series called Criminal Justice, stripped - we had a bit of a discussion at ITV - would we have done it? My view was yes, it was excellent drama." He cautions that "you can tie yourself up in knots" trying to determine what a BBC One or ITV1 programme is. "If you smell a hit, you say yes."

14.12: Asked about Shaps' outgoing schedule changes - bringing back News at Ten and moving Corrie's Sunday outing to Friday - Fincham comments that Sunday has "opened up" to permit Saturday night entertainment shows to move across the entire weekend.

14.14: "News at Ten's another story. Are we better with the News at Ten than the News at When? I think we are. Obviously we can't replicate the world when we had the News at Ten and the BBC had the Nine o'Clock News." He adds that having both choices at 10pm offers plurality but tacitly acknowledges that the BBC will lead in the slot. "We don't need to obsess about that. I'd rather have our premier news bulletin in a proper senior slot, so I think in that sense it's in the right place."

14.16: "We need to start eroding that differential with BBC One," he says.

14.17: Benidorm "is like a soap in the sun", Fincham suggests, characterising it as a "modern comedy" that built on the first series to deliver higher figures on its second series debut. "I think comedy on mainstream channels is perhaps the toughest genre."

14.20: "Mainstream channels should premiere comedy," he says, noting that during his time at the BBC he disagreed with the notion that BBC One should simply cherry-pick popular comedies from BBC Two and BBC Three.

14.21: "If we only had comedy on ITV2, we wouldn't have got to Benidorm."

14.22: He suggests that BBC One during his tenure premiered fewer comedies but had a higher recommission rate.

14.23: The topic moves from comedy to entertainment. "Entertainment is one of ITV1's formidable strengths. The really big entertainment calls are tough calls. I look at a show like I'm A Celebrity [commissioned by the questioner in this session, David Liddiment] - just by sheer dint of being done so well, it became a better show than Survivor. There's no hiding place if they go wrong."

Liddiment suggests that putting Ant and Dec helped "make that show" and "make them for ITV".

14.25: Fincham compares When Will I Be Famous? - of which he says bits didn't work - and Britain's Got Talent, which worked well on the screen. "We need more big entertainment successes on ITV. We can't take that many more talent searches - and yet you might have said that before Britain's Got Talent."

14.27: "I think genres wax and wane - I don't think genres ever die," says Fincham, noting that Pop Idol followed on from the Opportunity Knocks tradition. "There's no equivalent of Surprise, Surprise in the ITV schedule. They wax and they wane. If only it were a science."

14.29: "I didn't feel constrained in calls that I made at the BBC in [light entertainment]," says Fincham, while acknowledging more institutional concern over things like vulgarity at the corporation.

14.30: He notes that there is no equivalent in comedy of the BBC's Natural History Unit in consistently producing successful programmes.

14.35: Fincham says ITV1 has "enough soap". "They are an extraordinary success story. The story of the soaps is of audiences having an extraordinary appetite for them and for that appetite to increase. I don't think it can increase beyond the current number."

14.38: At the BBC, Fincham says, he noted a strong drama lineup on Sunday nights. "Lewis, Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, Wild at Heart" are named. BBC One "seemed to suddenly get better" in 9pm drama in the week: "Spooks, Hustle" are cited.

14.39: Fincham says 9pm "is the premier slot of the night where you want to compete and get up to 5m" and is his key challenge at ITV.

14.41: Asked whether one has to moderate risk-taking at ITV1 - related to a remark by Simon Shaps a couple of years ago that he wanted to take more risks in drama - Fincham turns it around to avoid any negative connotation but says ensuring familiarity is important. "Out of Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper we've got Moving Wallpaper which is a funny show and I'm glad it's coming back. That's actually quite a good yield."

14.43: "I don't think ITV should dig itself into a cop trench, I don't think the BBC should dig itself into a doc trench," Fincham says when asked about the police/medical dramas on both channels.

14.44: "We're looking for hit dramas. I believe strongly that we need returning series."

14.45: "There's room for event drama," he says, citing the commission of Collision.

14.46: He points to the Law and Order: London 13 episode commission as an attempt to give stability to the schedule. However he has "mixed feelings" about going from 6 to 13 episode commissions on a regular basis because it could reduce variety.

14.48: The conversation moves to factual. "I think that we need factual to occupy the 9pm territory. Mainstream channels can't afford endless amounts of 9pm midweek drama - so factual becomes a key part of that."

14.50: He notes that ITV1 does not have the relationship with its siblings as BBC One has with Two, Three and Four - and that it is therefore difficult for ITV1 to do what BBC One does, poaching shows from the other channels once they break into the mainstream.

14.51: Fincham further notes there is a financial disparity - that ITV3, the digital channel which he says has most in common with ITV1, does not have the budget of BBC Two.

14.52: He notes that ITV no longer has a natural history factual strand, and refers back to Survival.

14.58: A questioner points out that Fincham has not mentioned children's TV. Fincham responds that CITV is "very successful" as a digital channel and that children's is "an important part of what we do".

15.00: "Absolutely no decision on Harley Street - we'll look at that when we get to the end of the run."

15.02: Fincham cites family drama - Doctor Who, Robin Hood, Primeval - as an example of the new type of children's programming on mainstream TV.

Posted Saturday, August 23 at 14:00 by James

Live blog: The Edinburgh PSB Review

12.32: Welcome to our live blog of The Edinburgh PSB Review, with panellists Andy Duncan (CEO, C4), Emily Bell (The Guardian), Jana Bennett (head of BBC Vision), Lord Melvyn Bragg (controller of specialist factual and arts at ITV) and Ofcom board member Tim Gardam taking a look at the future of British public service broadcasting.

12.33: Red and green cards have been distributed to the gathered delegates, adding a touch of vintage Ready Steady Cook to proceedings.

12.37: Chairman Steve Hewlett brings us up to date with phase 2 of Ofcom's PSB consultation. Four options: 1) Evolution, where all the PSBs continue to provide PSB programmes with extra public funding or fewer obligations; 2) BBC only, where ITV, C4 and Five become fully commercial; 3) BBC and C4 plus extra competitive funding for PSB programming; 4) broad competitive funding where many providers bid for funding to provide competition for the BBC.

12.41: Gardam is asked about Fincham being "quite rude to Ofcom" in last night's MacTaggart - the "deathless language" quote is picked out in particular. Gardam responds: "I thought the great thing about the speech was it was vintage Fincham... he believes that television is special... he was saying that what television does matters as much in the online world as what it has done in the past. What I didn't really understand is what he wanted Ofcom to do."

12.42: "What Ofcom has always said about ITV... is that it should always have a big programme budget and produce" British programming. "On the purposes of PSB, the [part of the] Communications Act is 75 lines long - we did well to cut it down." Gardam adds that further down Ofcom's report on PSB is "the language of television", which Fincham complained was notably absent. "All those words there are absolutely the words he was using."

12.44: Asked by Emily Bell what Ofcom should do now, Gardam says the regulator is talking to broadcasters about ways to keep PSB "as vibrant and relevant in a world where the economic rules have changed".

12.45: Gardam suggests that a future model for PSB could end up being a hybrid of the four suggested models. However, he reiterates that the current system will result in ITV and C4 declining and the BBC having a monopoly on PSB. "The viewers don't want that," he says.

12.46: Gardam agrees with Fincham that "television is special... the public have a visceral connection with it... they love it."

12.47: Next up is Lord Bragg with a 5 minute speech. The highlights:
- ITV the biggest PSB in the world
- "ITV is the most extraordinary broadcasting phenomenon", blending commercial instinct with PSB.
- "The old game is up". He warns of a continued decline in advertising.
- ITV's ancien regulatory regime is "unsustainable".

12.49: Bragg compares ITV's out-of-London programming, and number of drama commissions, to those of the BBC. ITV's programme budget goes into 80% British productions. "That's the greatest benefit" of ITV's PSB obligations. He notes that "predators" interested in purchasing ITV would have got it back to financial fitness by cutting British production.

12.51: "We can't go forward at ITV without a radical decrease in regulations."

12.52: Bragg says the choice is between ITV's shareholders insisting the analogue licences are handed back as switchover approaches or a "programme led" business model keeping an emphasis on British production.

12.53: He calls for an "unleashed, non-nanny state ITV".

12.54: CRR "should be readdressed as soon as possible", Bragg says of which obligations should be dumped and when. "Regions are a massive expense for ITV... they cost £115-£120m. We can't afford that any more. We're seeking to trim that, to reduce that cost but still to keep nine regional stations."

12.55: Bragg emphasises "things have changed... we have to adapt and address it or perish".

12.56: Emily Bell asks whether ITV would be better off being owned by Sky. "Certainly not," replies Bragg.

12.57: "You're cherry-picking the rules," suggests Bell. "What's cherry-picking - over the last 25 years, ITV has been the whipping-boy. We've been left with the clutter. We have to push quite a bit out of the way to continue to make strong programmes," replies Bragg, praising Grade for securing a large programme budget for the next two years.

12.58: Bell asks how the PSB, British production-emphasising ethos can be maintained after regulatory constraint is removed and current management moves on. Bragg responds that Bell's newspaper, The Guardian, could turn into the Daily Mail - Bell points out that the Scott Trust would prevent such a change.

"I think very little's guaranteed in this world", says Bragg. "The sort of written guarantees you want for the BBC or the Scott Trust - how very privileged you are - we don't have that." He further suggests that ITV must come out and fight and to stop being a "whipping boy".

13.00: Gardam is asked how likely it is that ITV will hand back its licences.

"Commercial public service broadcasting has always been a deal," he responds. He notes that Ofcom's calculation still has a £45m benefit, down from £200m+, of being a PSB. "If ITV were to hand its licences back, there would be a process. It would lose its gifted spectrum. We believe there is a major benefit in ITV remaining a PSB."

13.02: "Viewers like" ITV regional news the further out of London they are, adds Gardam.

13.03: Asked whether a deal can be reached with ITV, Gardam says that the PSB review should deliver a "flexible framework" to take into account all "public service content in the market".

13.04: Andy Duncan's turn now. He agrees with Bragg that "the world is changing very fast".

13.05: "Very profound change is going on," he says, warning that the current system is "in more danger than a lot of people in the industry and a lot of politicians think".

13.06: Google comes up; Duncan says they take in almost half the total UK TV ad market but do not invest in content. He warns that global economic change affecting both public and advertising funds his hitting hard, but adds that underlying structural change - less money coming out of TV advertising - continues anyway.

13.07: "The prize is to get a system" where the ethos of "great quality programmes" available free of charge to everyone for the long term, he says. He praises Ofcom's PSB review and describes the divide between the review document and Fincham's comments is "paper thin".

13.09: He encourages Ofcom to "set ITV free... the game's over". He predicts ITV will not give up its PSB obligations: "There's huge value in EPG number 3 - more than Ofcom gives it," he notes and says regional news makes the network "distinctive". Five is "in balance". C4 needs to find a new source of funding to replace gifted analogue licences to deliver a workable business model.

13.10: "It's not rocket science", says Duncan, asking that another 5 years are not spent determining what the next move should be.

13.11: Duncan passionately argues: "Let's get this sorted out, let's join together as an industry, let's argue".

13.12: He suggests C4 should be the BBC's main multigenre competition because ITV and Five are commercial companies answerable to shareholders who may not want an hour of current affairs in peak.

13.16: Duncan does not offer a precise answer to a question from Emily Bell asking where any extra public funds would be invested. "I'm primarily saying our television budgets are at threat," he says, but brings up 4IP - where money is invested in public service content not necessarily for broadcast. "The gap in the money is absolutely about TV budgets," he reiterates.

13.20: Duncan says that any accountability (such as by a public service authority) or regulatory structure for C4 would have to take into account the organisation's aims and not stifle the channel's creativity. He notes that other broadcasters are able to be creative in their respective regulatory structures.

13.21: Jana Bennett now speaks for the BBC. She suggests that the choices faced by the industry are not binary: "There are some fundamentals that aren't changing. Britain remains the second largest exporter of programme hours - we account for 53% of format hours exported."

13.22: She says that a commitment to high quality programming underpins the future of PSB, and says ITV is essential for maintaining plurality. "ITV is also part of this system, even if they were to lose some regulatory commitments. They will always be giving the BBC a runs for its money. Their being liberated could help."

13.24: Bennett says it is important for ITV to remain "a mass reach organisation". On C4, Bennett suggests that a pot-of-money based model "has a lot of questions" and suggests taking money out of the licence fee could further "destabilise" an already unstable system.

13.26: "The one bit of certainty in this system would become destabilised," she reiterates. "I question the model where we are digging up the roads again." She notes that the licence fee settlement has also resulted in 20% being pulled from factual programming and argues that top-slicing to give C4 - or other public service providers - a variable amount of money would destabilise the BBC.

13.28: "We want to be supporting partnerships," says Bennett, citing technology sharing as a possible way of sharing resources across the industry - "finding a dynamic way" to assist C4 rather than a numbers-based approach.

13.31: Bennett suggests a recent Guardian poll suggesting a drop in support for the licence fee "has some limitations", and says polls commissioned, but not done, by the BBC suggest that support for the licence fee remains high. She acknowledges that licence fee money is being spent on going out of London in part because outside the capital appreciation for the BBC is not as high.

13.33: Gardam says that "the BBC needs certainty", and that a strong BBC is central to the future of PSB. He adds that diminished commercial PSBs would result in a monopoly for the BBC, and therefore a model has to be found where the commercials will survive but the BBC remains strong. He notes that "it is very unlikely" that public cash will come in outside the licence fee for the future of PSB, and refuses to rule out that licence fee money will be used despite Bennett's remarks that such a move could destabilise the broadcaster.

13.37: A questioner from BBC Wales asks whether, for all the discussion about plurality, the BBC will be left to provide programmes in the nations and regions. Bragg denies ITV is dumping regional programming - "it's simply not true".

13.39: Bragg says money for other public service broadcasters should not be taken from the licence fee, and suggests the BBC will have enough problems - especially if the Tories come to power at the next election - to cope with going forward. He adds, of those who might contest for licence fee money: "What would they bring to the table? What have the 200 digital channels brought to the table?"

13.41: Gardam points out that Discovery produces PSB-like content; however, it is counter-pointed that they have been doing that on their own for commercial reasons, raising a question over why public funds would be needed.

13.42: Duncan warns that this issue must be dealt with before the next election. "We will collectively all suffer if this drags on."

13.43: "Contestability turns the money into a form of lottery," says Bennett in her closing remarks. "It doesn't guarantee the centre-piece being high quality origination with scale and impact."

13.45: Show-of-hands-time: more people in the hall don't want the licence fee top-sliced.

Posted Saturday, August 23 at 12:32 by James

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Day two at the Festival

Day two at the Festival. Our small DS reporting team managed to successfully resist falling into the trap (that so many other journalists do) of over-exertion on Friday night. As a result we're fresh and fighting fit for the Festival's most arduous day.

Today there are 28 sessions - yesterday there were 13, tomorrow there are 13 - followed by the notorious 'Saturday Night Party at the George'. We're cherry-picking the best to cover here on DS, so check back in throughout the day for the following:

- A live blog of 'The Edinburgh PSB Review', a session discussing the issues surrounding Ofcom's upcoming recommendations for the future of PSB in the UK

- Highlights of Heroes creator Tim Kring's 'masterclass' session

- Full coverage of an interview with new Doctor Who exec producer Steven Moffat

- Coverage of controller sessions with Jay Hunt (BBC One), Peter Fincham (ITV) and Jana Bennett (BBCs Two and Four)

- An exclusive live video interview with Tim Kring around 2.30pm (all being well!)

- Live coverage from the Channel of the Year Awards from 6.30pm

Posted Saturday, August 23 at 11:29 by Neil

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