Transcript of Breakfast with Frost interview with the BBC's Director-General Mark Thompson:

David Frost:
First of all, someone who's been settling into a high profile job is the new Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson. Since taking over the job previously held by Greg Dyke, Mark has indicated that the BBC faces a radical shake up in certain different ways, but let's turn to him straight away and ask – welcome Mark.

Mark Thompson:
Good morning David.

David Frost:
Odd saying welcome to the Director-General because it's your studio but anyway, so welcome to us all, anyway. Tell me, you've mentioned the word change, how important change is, how great change has to be to the BBC, more in the last ten years than ever before, how would you summarise what you mean by the change you would like to bring about in the BBC?

Mark Thompson:
Well the key thing is that the whole world of broadcasting is changing, technology's changing and I think audiences and audience expectations of the BBC are changing as well. And I think the BBC's challenge is to keep some things the same.

I think there are traditions, values, things that the public have expected from the BBC for 80 years, we've got to hold onto but we've got to find new ways of expressing them, with new technologies, through mobile phones, digital television, broadband and so forth.

And these new technologies are not, they're not just experiments any more – we've just finished the Olympics, more than nine million people used our interactive services in the Olympics, they pressed the red button – and yet at the same time we've also got recognise that many, many of our audience don't yet have digital equipment, so we've got to kind of balance the present services with the new ones.

David Frost:
And do you think that the licence fee, which you're in the middle of negotiating or preparing to negotiate, the licence fee will last for not only this next charter but the one after it – could there still be a licence fee in 20 or 30 years time?

Mark Thompson:
I believe so but it very much depends on the BBC. I think if we, if we do what we've always done, which is stand for brilliant content, outstanding excellent content – we don't always achieve that by the way but at our best that's what we do – it may well be delivered to households in different ways, but if we still stand for that I think the public absolutely will support us and the, the unbroken chain – if you like – of the relationship between us and the public will stay unbroken.

David Frost:
And what about if people have computers and start getting really high quality pictures on their computers which they watch, would they then have to pay a licence fee to their computer?

Mark Thompson:
Well I, I think for as far as the eye can see, television sets and television reception is going to be an important part of the mix in the household.

But I have to say, I think that in the end what really matters is the content, is the programming –whether it's David Attenborough natural history, whether it's great news content, whether it's dramas like The Long Firm or the BBC TWO this summer – and we will deliver the content sometimes through the computer.

I mean I think there will be, one of the things we're looking at is whether we could, we could give you at home, via a computer or broadband connection, or perhaps to a hard disk, a recording device inside a, inside a digital box, we could give you a whole week's programming – a whole week of the BBC, so instead of having to watch programmes when we put them in the schedule, you could dip in and watch anything you wanted when you wanted to watch it.

David Frost:
So that in fact you would say that the licence fee is probably safe for the next charter for ten years and may well be safe for the next one but would become, you'd start having to think of other ways of doing it maybe by the third charter? Assuming you're still here in your 34th year, of course.

Mark Thompson:
Well I think – every, every time the BBC's charter comes up for renewal, people say it's the last time. It's the last time for the charter, the last, the last time for the licence fee.

I was involved in the Nineties in the charter then, all the same arguments happened and actually the BBC and its, and its relationship with the public persists and is much stronger.

So, yes I do believe the licence fee has got a long future, but only, only if, if we give the public what they want, we live up to the expectations of the public, which is partly about the BBC being different from commercial broadcasters. It's about a kind of extra factor x, of when they turn to the BBC they feel that we are different, that we're striving for more.

David Frost:
And what do you say, what do you say to people – obviously we mentioned earlier on, obviously you came in in the wake of the Hutton Report and so on and so forth, and Greg Dyke in his book says that in some ways he thinks that the whole crisis may have strengthened the BBC – would you agree with that?

Mark Thompson:
Well we certainly know from talking to the public that their faith in the BBC and BBC journalism is undamaged. They still think of the BBC as one of the absolutely most trustworthy sources of news and information. And I have to say I think they're absolutely right to do so.

I do think that we don't get everything right, we make mistakes, and indeed one of the lessons from Hutton is that when we make mistakes, when we get complaints, we have to deal with them very quickly and very thoroughly. I mean our journalism must be robust, it must be, it must be hard-hitting.

I think that the Gilligan reports on David Kelly were exactly the right kind of stories for the BBC to do doing – we have to get it right as well. But I think that, you know, if you look at our news services, I think the level of professionalism, the level of quality is very high and the public recognise that.

David Frost:
I mean Greg says in his book in fact most of the story broadcast on the Today programme was right and while Gilligan made mistakes "they were nowhere near as serious as those made by Downing Street and the BBC was not sending British soldiers to war". I mean that's making the point that with a few, a few minor blips or mistakes that the BBC was right. Do you think the BBC was right in that controversy?

Mark Thompson:
Well let me speak for myself. I've never seen this as a kind of a, a battle, or a competition between the BBC and the Government.

I mean my, my task as Director-General is to look at the BBC's journalism and I think it was exactly the right kind of story to be doing, the right story to pursue – mistakes were made though. Greg and the BBC recognise the series of mistakes and they apologise for those mistakes.

I need to make sure that we make as few mistakes as possible and when we do make mistakes that we, we identify them and correct them quickly. And I – that's my focus. Of course Hutton raised many bigger issues.

Should we have gone to war, was the Government in the right or in the wrong in what it said in its dossiers about weapons of mass destruction? Those areas of public debate are ones for the BBC to cover, not for me to be one of the players in. I need to sit back, look at the evidence and with the BBC's, all the other BBC journalists, try and report that debate fairly and squarely.

David Frost:
The other thing the Hutton Report brought out very dramatically was of course the question of the governors, and the governance of the BBC, and lots of people have said that the thing now has to be that the governors need to be a separate body in a separate place, they can't manage the management as well as doing their job of invigilating, as it were, and they've got to be separated – the two roles – separated geographically, separated in terms of who runs them and so on and so forth. Do you feel there have to be reforms like that to make the system of governing the BBC credible again?

Mark Thompson:
Firstly, I think the governors, over more than 80 years, have done a great job in keeping the BBC, above all, independent. We know, indeed the Government's own consultation on the public made it clear the biggest single thing the public wants is an absolute guarantee the politicians won't get too closely involved in the BBC and the great strength of our governance system is it guarantees independence.

I think in the current age, where accountability and objectivity and regulation are more, more important than ever, the governors do need to look at their separation of management and indeed in our vision of the future, Building Public Value, they set out some ideas about how they can be more separate, more separate. But I mean we shouldn't get impression that the BBC is utterly unaccountable. Two of the last four Director-Generals have effectively been dismissed by the governors – two out of four – so I mean, you know, if I get even slightly out of line –
David Frost:
Tread carefully here, yes, yes -

Mark Thompson:
... exactly.

David Frost:
You're walking on eggs here. Tell me, there was a story this week again about the way that you are, and indeed it had already started before you got there, moving staff to the, outside London, that it's too metropolitan, the BBC, and so on. In five years time, how many people would you guess will have moved, BBC staff, from within the M25 to without it?

Mark Thompson:
Certainly by the, by the end of the next charter, which I guess is probably 2016, if we get a ten year charter, we expect at least half of the BBC staff to be based outside London – at least half. And with some major centre – and not just –

David Frost:
Mainly in the Oxford area –

Mark Thompson:
That's where I live – and not just doing local news or regional news or in the nation's programmes for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but doing everything – some of our biggest network, some of our big departments.

And that's because the BBC, you know, it's owned by the whole country, it draws its talent from the whole country, it's paid for by licence payers living in the whole country and if we're to really reflect that and to be visible in the whole country, we need to be more broadly based than we are now.

David Frost:
And what about the BBC, in its essential nature? You've said you don't think the BBC should, should do Big Brother, but obviously when you were at Channel 4 you thought it was all right for Channel 4 to do Big Brother and you put it on, or you inherited it, but you still put it on. How is it right for Channel 4 and wrong for the BBC?

Mark Thompson:
Well I think, you know, what I would say is different public service broadcasters have got different objectives. I mean to me one of the great glories of Channel 4 is it's not the BBC, it's meant to be more edgy, it's meant to focus a little bit more on the kind of limits of taste, and also it's both economically and I think also useful from an editorial point of view for it to concentrate on younger audiences, in particular. So to me Big Brother, I wouldn't claim that Big Brother was a great innovation any more, but I think it's part of the mix on Channel 4.

I think reality programming as a whole, if the BBC has got something distinctive, if we've got something unusual to do, let's consider it. But I have to say there's a great deal of reality television provided by the commercially-funded broadcasters, unless the BBC has got something really unusual to offer, I think we should concentrate, if you like, on some of the programmes people do expect from us, which is news and current affairs – but it's also things like great comedy, it's drama, it's natural history, it's music – last night's Last Night of the Proms will be, you know, just a bit like a metaphor for the, just the way the BBC brings the whole country together to celebrate the musical life of the nation.

And I think those are the things that we should concentrate on rather than trying to operate in every single kind of programming, which already other broadcasters do rather well.

David Frost:
And so – well thank you very much indeed Mark – so when will you, incidentally, get your one billion pound cheque for selling off 70 per cent of BBC Worldwide, is that imminent?

Mark Thompson:
No. What we're doing, we're, as, you know, at the time of charter renewal the whole, the whole country looks at the BBC and we're looking harder at ourselves. We're looking at the future of our commercial services.

We absolutely should be trying to get as much commercial value out of our programmes as we can because we can use that to make more programmes and to improve our public services. How we do it is an open question. We've got some great commercial divisions and we're looking very openly at what their future should be.

David Frost:
Mark, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

Mark Thompson:
Thank you David.

David Frost:
It's been a pleasure