BBC, ITV ‘no longer decide’ TV viewing

UK broadcasters BBC and ITV “no longer decide” what people watch on the small screen, according to YouTube’s director of content.

Ben McOwen Wilson told the Edinburgh International Television Festival that the TV industry had “shifted” and “moved from having limited shelf space.”

“Viewers are no longer limited any more, and that’s challenging for consumers to find content they want to watch,” he said.

Wilson said he partly disagreed with the view of Hollywood star Kevin Spacey – who earlier delivered the Festival’s annual MacTaggart Lecture – that the days of “watercooler television” were numbered.

“People are still talking and sharing,” said Wilson. “There is a watercooler, it’s just not limited. It’s worldwide, where you no longer have to remember the punchline you can just show the content.

But Wilson and his panel, which consisted of Kate Barnes, Microsoft Xbox executive producer TV EMEA, and Philip DeBevoise, president and cofounder of video games network Machinima, mostly agreed with the actor’s speech and his idea of the “third golden age of television.”

DeBevoise said: “We’ve entered the third revolution of video programming. It comes in waves, the first was platform-based broadcasting then came cable/satellite, and this third wave is internet-based. We’re the new MTVs, CNNs, AMCs and we’re here to stay.”

Sitting in the audience, TalkTalk’s newly appointed head of TV Henrik Karlberg asked why YouTube didn’t commission and editorialise more of its own original content, to which Wilson replied: “YouTube are not commissioners of content, what we’re great at is building a platform that allows anyone to upload video and share it.

“We wouldn’t want to schedule content and decide what people should be passionate about. The same person can be passionate about different things, we’re not a content owner and we wouldn’t limit that experience.”