The UK pubcaster also needs to show that it has driven digital take-up even faster within the UK, that it has helped prevent any digital divide between those who can afford new technology and those who can‘t, between those who leap at it and those who need assistance. It means supporting media literacy campaigns, enabling employment through apprenticeships and training, making sure there are the greatest range of social benefits too.

The remarks were made by London 2012 director Roger Mosey at the IBC Conference in Amsterdam. Doing better for the Olympics in London in 2012 is not something that the UK pubcaster can do on its own. This will involve partnerships most obviously with the London Organising Committee, many UK public institutions and with stakeholders like the IOC, the EBU and the host broadcasters at OBS. It will also involve working with this industry and many of the people here today to harness the best ideas.

He also took aim at James Murdoch who recently made remarks about the BBC. "We want to cheer James up and suggest his pessimism is unfounded – that a BBC still respected across the world as a model of public service can and does work with the private sector, and a healthy BBC with popular support is a guarantor of innovation and supporter of enterprise," Mosey said.