Patricia Hodgson, chief executive of the Independent Television Commission, wants the BBC to concentrate on high-quality programming and stop making shows like "Celebrity Sleepover".

Her comments came in the Fleming Lecture to the Royal Television Society last night.

This is an extract from the ITC's own report on the section of Ms Hodgson's lecture called  "The Future of Television":

"...business freedoms would allow the communications sector to fuel the economy. But Britain also wanted the sector to support democracy and - in the wake of September 11 - carry our ideas about what kind of world we want to live in. "Good communications," she said, "makes us governable at home and acceptable abroad".

Radio and TV was very relevant to citizenship; based on hours spent, the average person devoted 20 years of their life to listening and viewing, but only 3 to formal education.

In a digital future, said Patricia Hodgson, it was therefore important that competition did not push quality off the agenda.

“There is a genuine danger of a market delivering sport, films and commodity TV, with little to challenge and engage. Production-line programmes, polished and entertaining, but predictable. ...We can't hold back the tide. We can channel it in constructive directions... [with] structures that fit the market and incentives to support the investment needed for real creative freedom.

A properly funded and focused BBC was a necessary condition of ambition in broadcasting. “It should be popular of course - where is the public service in being anything else? But it should accept the challenge to make the market; that is, to make it different from what it would be if the BBC didn't exist.

“Beating ITV with Blue Planet is a triumph. Beating ITV with Celebrity Sleepover is a tragedy.”

Channel 4 was needed to keep the BBC honest. “ With free spectrum and no shareholder pressure, Channel 4 can do things the market won't. But, as it is, Channel 4 hasn't the scale to act across the board. It's trying to build a multi-channel presence with purely commercial channels. Good luck to it. But maybe we should think about how to strengthen, over the next few years, the public service offerings as well.”

You can read the full report or get the text of the speech in a Word document from the ITC's own Web site here