This year's keynote speech at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival was a less obviously controversial event than in recent years – as evidenced by the fewer number of media outlets pouncing on delegates as they left the event.
But there is always post-MacTaggart reaction and, here, allmediascotland.com reports some of the immediate response to the speech by the first non-TV person to deliver the MacTaggart: Google executive chairman, Dr Eric Schmidt.
Read Schmidt's full speech here. Watch the video, here.
And here is what some of the delegates had to say, in the immediate aftermath:
“I thought it was really interesting. It’s nice to have someone who has always been outside the industry to come and actually give a perspective that we all sort of think about but probably don’t take the time to really digest. A lot to take home which is sometimes more than you get each year.” Jeff Ford, director of programmes, Channel 5
“Eric Schmidt shared some fascinating insights into future trends in TV and the internet, which chimed with our ambitions to build on Scotland’s international reputation for innovation and creative excellence. The Scottish Government has already identified the creative industries as a key sector for economic growth and I firmly believe that Scotland is well-placed to take advantage of the global opportunities on offer. We are confident about our capacity for innovation and the challenge now is to follow that through and exploit the commercial opportunities. The Scottish Digital Network is the quickest way to expand quality content to Scotland.” Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Scottish Government
“It strikes me that the underlying politics of this are [Google] are desperately worried about regulatory intervention because they are 90 per cent-plus of the search market and in any other business that would trigger regulatory inquiry in ten seconds flat. And that’s why I think he took his moment to target regulators.” Steve Hewlett, media commentator
“It was interesting but I suppose a lot of creative people in the audience would have felt they were being preached at a little by him but I thought a lot of the advice was good … and I think people will respond quite positively. I suppose we didn’t really expect to be told what to do but maybe sometimes that’s a good thing.” David Stephenson, TV editor at the Sunday Express
“It was brilliant – a fantastic speech. I loved the whole theme about bringing art and science together in television. It’s what we’re trying to do with investing in online at ITV and we’ll be sending it round to everybody at ITV to watch.” Robin Pembrooke, managing director, ITV.com
“For me it was the best MacTaggart ever.” Russell Stopford, chair, GlowLabs
“It’s a brave new world. Television is dead. Internet and television are completely exploding out of the box.” Alistair Scott, Edinburgh Skillset Film and Media Academy
“I think the tension is really how much the revenue from ad sales goes back into content the traditional way. That’s we’re the tension is between Google and television. Clearly, Google is part of this industry and we’ve been trying to crack what convergence is about at this festival for years. This is the first year where we’ve all started to understand it.” Krishnan-Guru Murthy, Channel 4 News
“I got anxious when you heard American free market ideas coming in and telling us that we should sweep away all the regulation. What he said about the urgency – that was a wake up call.” Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, Guardian News and Media
“Genuinely, genuinely fascinating and really different, actually.” Kate Garraway, TV presenter
Watch here.
