Quotes

Jonathan (Jonathan Ross) is a uniquely talented broadcaster and is at the very top of his game. He's one of the defining faces of BBC One and his Friday night chat show is the best in the business. We're all delighted he's staying.

Don't get me wrong - television needs regulators, just as roads need traffic wardens. But you wouldn't ask your traffic warden to give you advice on what sort of car to buy, still less how to drive it.

We're in show business... night after night audiences turn on the television because they think it will entertain them, if they don't they can do other things. Unless we fight hard to assert the importance of mass audiences, we may find that broadcasting as we know it simply goes niche and splits into a thousand pieces. No point in lingering by the water cooler any more - the chances of anybody having watched the same programme as you last night are remote. More work gets done in the office, perhaps, but culturally it's a loss, not a gain.