CONNECTED VISION
BBC director general and head of news resign
Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and Doborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, have resigned. It follows criticism of how the current affairs programme Panorama misleadingly edited an address by President Trump. It is the latest in a line of crises at the corporation. The departure of the head of the BBC comes at a critical time as it prepares to negotiate with the government over its future and funding.
BBC chairman Samir Shah said that Tim Davie had the full support of the chair and the board throughout, but he understood that the continued pressure on him, personally and professionally, had led him to resign. He said: “This is an important time for the corporation and the board and I will continue to work with Tim in the interim while we conduct the process to appoint his successor.”
In a message to staff, Tim Davie wrote: “I have been reflecting on the very intense personal and professional demands of managing this role over many years in these febrile times, combined with the fact that I want to give a successor time to help shape the charter plans they will be delivering.”
The last straw in a series of controversies at the BBC came with the publication of a leaked memo suggesting the Panorama programme shown in October 2024 edited a speech by President Trump in such a way that he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021.
The problem was not just the editing of the programme, but the suggestion that the senior management were aware of the problem for months but had done nothing about it.
Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News, who joined the organisation from ITN in 2022, said: The ongoing controversy around the Panorama on President Trump has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love.”
She offered her resignation to the director general, which was clearly accepted, and “Teflon” Tim Davie recognised that it was finally time for him to go too.
Time Davie had been director general for just over five years, having joined the BBC as director of marketing, communications and audiences from PepsiCo in 2005.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, thanked him for his service, writing: “Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.
“As a government, we will support the Board as it manages this transition and ensure that the Charter Review is the catalyst that helps the BBC to adapt to this new era and secures its role at the heart of national life for decades to come.”
Sky Live camera dropped
Sky is pulling the plug on its £290 camera product. The camera was designed to sit on the top of the Sky Glass television and offer video calling, watch together, games, and fitness workouts. The television companion camera was announced as part of the Sky Glass launch in October 2021 but did not emerge until June 2023. The service will cease in December. Any customers will be offered a full refund.
Sky Live offered Zoom video conference calling. It also offered the ability for Sky customers in different locations to watch programmes together, with onscreen images of their remote counterparts watching. There was built-in body tracking that could also be used for games and fitness applications.
At the time of its launch, Fraser Stirling, the global chief product officer at Sky, promised that it would redefine the home entertainment experience, “making it smarter, social, and more interactive.”
It turns out it did not. Customers did not want a camera staring back at them from the top of their Sky Glass television. It only worked with Sky Glass, and it cost £290 up front or £6 a month for 48 months. In the end, it lasted less than 48 months.
Anyone that did commit will get their money back in full, credited to their account automatically.
It will have been an expensive experiment for Sky, but its response is more honourable than some other technology companies. It is in the subscription business and cannot afford to let disappoint its customers any more than necessary.
Sky said: “Innovation has always been at the heart of Sky, finding new ways to make the TV experience even better for our customers.
“Sky Live was part of that journey, and we’re proud of the ambition behind it. It’s given us valuable learnings that are helping to shape the future of our products.
“We have, however, made the difficult decision to discontinue it, in order to focus our investment on what matters most to customers.”
Had the camera been integrated in the Sky Glass television and been offered as standard, rather than an expensive add-on, it might have stood more of a chance. There is also the question of personal privacy. Although the camera had a privacy button, it had a large lens looking out, with no built-in cover.
What would be interesting to know is whether customers found it too large, too expensive, or simply too intrusive for the utility that it offered. We will have to wait and see whether those valuable learnings end up in future products and services.
Sky in talks to buy ITV services for £1.6 billion
ITV has confirmed that it is in preliminary discussions regarding a possible sale of its media and entertainment business to Sky for an enterprise value of £1.6bn. That would include the broadcast channels and the ITVX online service, but not the ITV Studios production business. Sky is owned by the American communications company Comcast, which also owns NBC, Universal, and the Peacock online service, among other brands, with combined revenues of over $123 billion in 2024. The discussions are at an early stage and would require regulatory approval.
It comes after ITV reported that it expected advertising revenue to be down 6% over the year. The share price rose by about 18% on the reports but was still below the high for the year, at less than a third of the value ten years ago.
In 2006, what was then BSkyB acquired a 17.9% stake in ITV plc for £940 million. The Competition Commission ruled that this could operate against the public interest and Sky was obliged to reduce its holding to less than 7.5%, which it did at a considerable loss. It disposed of part of its stake to Liberty Global, which recently reduced its holding in ITV.
Between them, Sky and ITV, the largest commercial broadcaster in Britain, control sales of about two thirds of television advertising time in the United Kingdom, with most of the rest sold by Channel 4. Any combination of the Sky and ITV advertising sales houses is likely to involve investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, with input from the communications regulator Ofcom.
A key consideration will be whether the relevant market is wider than television, given the growth in online advertising, which is now much larger. Television advertising in the United Kingdom is worth about £5.2 billion a year. Online display advertising is worth about £17.5 billion.
Traditional broadcasters face greater competition from online, including online video subscription services but also from YouTube, which has overtaken ITV in terms of share of total video viewing in the home on television and other screens.
Sky would be expected to assume the obligations that come with the ITV public service broadcasting licence, which ITV renewed for another 10 years in 2024. They include the provision of national and local news, original programming and working with independent producers.
There are issues of plurality, given that Sky and ITV, through its part ownership of Independent Television News, both have newsgathering operations that could have synergies.
Some analysts have suggested that the move by Sky, now backed by the deep pockets of Comcast, could be seen as the best long-term survival strategy for ITV in a changing media climate.
It still leaves the production arm, ITV Studios, which could attract further bids from potential purchasers, some of which have previously expressed an interest in acquiring that business.
The board will be obliged to consider the bid on behalf of its shareholders, weighing the financial, strategic, and operational implications. In this case it is not a proposed takeover but a corporate transaction for a major business unit. Nevertheless, it would require shareholder approval and importantly regulatory clearance.