MGEITF 2010: Jeremy Hunt – “David Cameron and I are huge fans of the BBC”

Mark Thompson’s MacTaggart lecture at this year’s MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival ensured that the BBC dominated the weekend agenda… even the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted to being a “huge fan”.

Hunt referred to the BBC News as “one of our national crown jewels” and despite serious talk of licence fee cuts, the contentious issues of Salford, BBC pensions and overpaid presenters, the overall tone of the conference was one of support and admiration for Britain’s principal public service broadcaster.

It is clear that delegates are keen for the BBC to find a balance between both popular and worthy, something which Thompson himself promised to do, but it was also apparent that people don’t want to see the BBC “culling services” as some have implied they should.

In the ‘Build your own BBC’ session, John Simpson – BBC World Affairs editor – said the BBC has some very noisy enemies (namely the British press) but the public remained positive, and when David Elstein referred to the licence fee as the BBC’s “cocaine supply”, Simpson said it is the “lifeblood of the BBC”.

Simpson also said the idea that the BBC is rolling in money is simply not true -“[journalist] cuts have been savage” – but he clearly felt there were still too many layers of management.

As to Jeremy Hunt, Simpson believes his ideas for the BBC are both weird and worrying: “We’re working with a man who wants to turn us into Birmingham Alabama… I can’t wait,” he commented, to many laughs.

Ash Atalla, managing director of Roughcut TV, was also keen to support the BBC and urged people to gain some perspective on the issues used to attack the corporation: “Iraq this ain’t… people don’t want to cut the BBC. We need to start standing up for ourselves, because if we keep sleep-walking it will be like going to Egypt to find the pyramids gone, just because James Murdoch thought they were a bit old”.