In 2009 television advertising revenue fell by 17% which has panicked broadcasters into questioning their future. After spending 3 days at the RTS Cambridge Convention this week Moray reports on how Google claim that they can save the day.
“I’ve just spent three days at the RTS Cambridge Convention, the gathering every two years of some two hundred people who own or run the UK’s TV industry… Sessions led by the likes of Mark Thompson, Peter Bazalgette, Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw, Andy Duncan and Dawn Airey, worried over the future of the BBC and the commercial broadcasters. But the big question lurking over every session was, ‘where will the money come from?’… Then, like a deity summoned from Olympus, Eric Schmidt appeared on a live satellite-link to answer questions from the delegates and give the word of Google. If Larry Page and Sergey Brin thought up Google, the most successful start-up in history, Eric Schmidt is the Chief Executive they brought in to run and grow it. And Google is aiming to be the god of all television.
I’ve just spent three days at the RTS Cambridge Convention, the gathering every two years of some two hundred people who own or run the UK’s TV industry. The mood certainly wasn’t self-congratulatory, if anything, the tone was typical of that set by Phil Redmond, creator of Brookside and Grange Hill, when quoting screenwriter, William Goldman, ‘nobody knows nothing’.