Adopt positive attitude to cultural change in Oxford, says BBC Director-General

Monday 24 October, 2005

Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, was the speaker at the second Oxford Inspires Cultural Platform, held at Oxford’s Jacqueline du Pré Music Building last Friday, 21 October. In the audience were over 100 cultural, academic and business leaders including the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Dr John Hood, and the Chair of the Arts Council, South East Regional Council, Kentaké Chinyelu-Hope.

Taking as his topic, "The BBC and British Culture", Mark Thompson described how changes in the world of electronic media are transforming the BBC's cultural mission. He went on to relate the Corporation's experience of breaking down cultural barriers to the particular context of Oxford, which, he said, has a more abundant and diverse cultural life than many of its residents realise. As a Patron of Oxford Inspires, Mark Thompson welcomed the fact that one of the organisation’s key aims is to heighten the sense of the cultural interdependence of the communities of Oxford and Oxfordshire.

He said: "Oxford really does have the potential to take a great leap forward in its cultural life. It has cultural institutions of national and in some cases global importance—its great university, the Ashmolean, Modern Art Oxford, the Oxford Playhouse among them. It has a growing number of festivals and performance series. Importantly, there is also a growing awareness that there has been a missing synergy, too little collaboration, too little effort to make the city and county's cultural initiatives add up to more than the sum of their parts. Helping to address this gap is the purpose of Oxford Inspires."

Speaking about culture and the BBC, Mark Thompson described how the Corporation now reaches more than half of all internet-enabled homes and offices in the UK with its web services. Online and digital services give the audience more than one opportunity to watch or listen to broadcast programmes. The launch of BBC 4 has enabled the BBC to expand its offer of arts programmes. And the BBC has been able to develop ambitious cultural projects which work across different media: for example The Beethoven Experience, which was carried not only on Radio 3 but also on the BBC's radio, television, interactive and web services.

Mark Thompson said: "What these big projects show is that we haven't lost our ambition—not just to service the committed, but to create cultural doorways, to reach out boldly to wider audiences."

Mark Thompson concluded by suggesting that the experience of the BBC over the past few years has been that the public are on the side of change. He said: "All we need to do in our role of helping to shape our shared cultural life is to adopt their confidence and their openness to change."

The twice-yearly Oxford Inspires Cultural Platform is designed to attract a well-known speaker to Oxford to discuss a major cultural issue and to help locate the work of Oxford Inspires in a national and regional context. The first Cultural Platform was held on 20 May 2005 when the speaker was Liz Forgan, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund. Click here to read the full text of her speech. The full text of Mark Thompson's speech can be found here.

Back to news archive...