The head of the BBC Trust Rona Fairhead has said most people want an independent body to set the level of the licence fee. In her first major speech since joining, she voiced the importance of the public being involved in the BBC's Royal Charter negotiations, which are due to start this year. Steve Hewlett is joined by Tim Suter, former partner at Ofcom and Lis Howell, Director of Broadcasting at City University, to excavate the key points she made, and discuss how the public might get involved in deciding the future shape of the organisation.
Satellite broadcaster Sky has reported that it's added 200,000 new customers in UK and Ireland in recent months- its highest growth in subscribers in nine years. This week, Sky's intervention ended one of sport's longest partnerships, when the BBC formally surrendered the rights to The Open Golf Championship. And this week Sky will go head to head with BT Sport as the deadline approaches for media players to submit sealed bids for the rights to show Premier League Football. Steve Hewlett talks to analyst Claire Enders about Sky's dominance in sports, and whether other media giants might enter the battle.
Staying with Sky, and the launch this week of the broadcaster's own big budget production, Fortitude. The programme, which has cost around £25 million pounds, stars Michael Gambon and Sofie Gråbøl. It launched simultaneously on Sky across Europe, now that Sky, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia are combined. Steve Hewlett talks to Sky's Head of Entertainment Stuart Murphy about the broadcaster's strategy to diversify away from sport and invest in drama, what success will look like for Fortitude, and how pan European transmission impacts on profits.
Producer: Katy Takatsuki.
