The annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival is a great example of a traditional public lecture: someone gets up and talks about a subject, in this case television/media/etc. Eric Schmidt of Google gave a very interesting talk; the full text of which can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2011/aug/26/eric-schmidt-mactaggart-lecture-full-text As expected the text differs slightly from the speech actually given. Schmidt starts with tributes to Scottish universities and to Steve Jobs. Although the whole speech is interesting, with insight into the plans of Google and discussion of how money can be made by TV companies in the age where people can get programmes for free, I’ll quote what he said about education in this country. And of course, you have the BBC. Not just the world’s best public service broadcaster, but arguably the most creative and technologically innovative of all. After the necessary pruning, the long-term settlement means the BBC can count on what to anyone would be a mouth watering income stream. It has a recognised and admired brand globally – just imagine live-streaming the Proms to 2 billion people! The world is the BBC’s oyster. So what could go wrong? Well, everything. If I may be so impolite (and here’s the insult Mark [Thompson] advised I throw in) your track record isn’t great! The UK is the home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV. You invented computers in both concept and practice. (It’s not widely known, but the world’s first office computer was built in 1951 by Lyon’s chain of tea shops!) Yet today, none of the world’s leading exponents in these fields are from the UK. So how can you avoid the same fate for your TV innovations? Of course there is no simple fix,...