this was damon keith last march. he was put into a coma and hooked up to our ventilator. was put into a coma and hooked up to our ventilator-— our ventilator. there is a high probability — our ventilator. there is a high probability you _ our ventilator. there is a high probability you don't - our ventilator. there is a high probability you don't exit - our ventilator. there is a high probability you don't exit thati our ventilator. there is a high - probability you don't exit that but i probability you don't exit that but iwas _ probability you don't exit that but i was lucky because of excellent care and — i was lucky because of excellent care and highly professional care at the hospital. it care and highly professional care at the hospital-_ the hospital. it was a long road to recovery but _ the hospital. it was a long road to recovery but damon _ the hospital. it was a long road to recovery but damon says - the hospital. it was a long road to recovery but damon says comingl the hospital. it was a long road to - recovery but damon says coming close to death has inspired him to lead a healthier life. aha, to death has inspired him to lead a healthier life.— healthier life. a few very healthy, i am healthier life. a few very healthy, i am walking _ healthier life. a few very healthy, i am walking in _ healthier life. a few very healthy, i am walking in the _ healthier life. a few very healthy, i am walking in the part, - healthier life. a few very healthy, i am walking in the part, stop - i am walking in the part, stop smoking _ i am walking in the part, stop smoking. alcohol uptake is down so releasing _ smoking. alcohol uptake is down so releasing as a spur to move forward.

as a thank_ releasing as a spur to move forward. as a thank you to people who cared for their father, as a thank you to people who cared fortheirfather, his as a thank you to people who cared for their father, his sons as a thank you to people who cared for theirfather, his sons have decided to raise funds for the hospital charity. they have raised more than £9,000.— hospital charity. they have raised more than £9,000. there is a ten kilometre loop _ more than £9,000. there is a ten kilometre loop around _ more than £9,000. there is a ten kilometre loop around the - more than £9,000. there is a ten kilometre loop around the house. | more than £9,000. there is a ten i kilometre loop around the house. we 'ust kilometre loop around the house. just thought kilometre loop around the house. - just thought we would give back because they give such amazing care to our dad when he was in hospital. so we wanted to do anything to help. the charity said the money they raised is especially important during the pandemic. it is raised is especially important during the pandemic. it is great that charlie _ during the pandemic. it is great that charlie and _ during the pandemic. it is great that charlie and henry - during the pandemic. it is great that charlie and henry did - during the pandemic. it is great - that charlie and henry did something they could _ that charlie and henry did something they could do safely to raise funds. we're _ they could do safely to raise funds. we're really for that. let me bring you some breaking news. a spokesperson for the duke and duchess of sussex have announced they are expecting their second child in september. they will have a

younger brother or sister for archie who isjust short younger brother or sister for archie who is just short of two years old so the joke is 36 and his wife is 39. the spokesperson confirmed they are expecting a younger brother or sisterfor archie. are expecting a younger brother or sisterforarchie. let are expecting a younger brother or sisterfor archie. let us are expecting a younger brother or sister for archie. let us take a look at the weather now. hello there. 0ur weather is going to turn increasingly mild over the next 2a hours, but as it does so, we've got some rain and some strong winds to come from this area of low pressure. this hook of cloud just going past northern ireland will bring some particularly strong winds, i think, to the hebrides in western scotland, where gusts of wind will probably reach about 75 mph, so there is the risk of some disruption here from the strong winds. outbreaks of rain and fairly windy conditions, though, with us for most areas of the uk as we go into this evening, and indeed overnight, those winds will very slowly ease down. there will be showers later in the night for northern ireland

and western scotland. and it's going to be a mild night — i've not said that for many weeks — 4—10 celsius, something like that. monday starts off on a rather damp note across east anglia and south—east england, with some rain slow to clear away. showers follow to northern ireland, north of both england and wales, and, across scotland. there will probably be quite a bit of cloud around, maybe a few mist and hill fog patches, but it will be mild. hello, this is bbc news. now on bbc news the media show talks to dame carolyn mccall — chief executive of itv. hello. itv is one of the most interesting and important institutions, notjust in british media but in britain itself. with formats, soaps and dramas watched by millions, it provides glue that binds our culture and energy that

drives our creative industry. but what a time to be an advertiser—funded business with a public service remit? terrifying competition from the richest companies in human history, a regulatory framework that most people agree is several years out of date, and delivering true public service in an era of culture wars. and that's before you chuck a pandemic in. it's quite an in tray and it belongs to the chief executive officer of itv. she has six tv channels, a global studios business, a streaming service in itv have britbox to manage, never mind the latest plot twist in corrie. and shejoins us now. carolyn mccall, thank you forjoining the media show. hi. how are you? very good to have you with us. i appreciate you're busy. thank you for giving up a big chunk of your time. we are going to spend the bulk of that time talking about itv and your leadership there. but you have had, it may be our listeners won't know, you have had a rather remarkable life and career before itv, and notjust in the media. few people would know the boss of itv was born in bangalore, and raised in singapore.

how come? well, actually born in bangalore and raised in india, and then i did my gcses in singapore and then i came to matlock, to a convent in derbyshire. so quite an odd background. my dad worked abroad but my mother's family have been in india for many years. and you had a successful and long reign as the boss of easyjet, a very different business, different people, different challenges. what is the most useful thing you learnt at easyjet in preparation for itv? easyjet is a digital business. what i did was accelerate that digital transformation at easyjet. what did i learn? i learned a lot about customers, and i had always been consumer centric and customer centric. it really mattered, my eight years. that was the transformation. you know, what i also really learned, massively at easyjet, is i used to go out a lot. i used to go to all the bases, i used to see all the crew, and i loved that bit of myjob. and i love that at itv because i believe you only really

know what is going on when you get out and about and you talk to people that are actually doing the jobs. let's talk about itv and what itv is in terms of content. what do you consider to be the crown jewels of the itv schedule? i think regional news is where itv excels. the other crown jewel is clearly entertainment. itv does entertainment, i think, obviously better than anybody else. it is about massive audiences. we regularly get well over 5 million. you know, on big shares, bgt, 11 million, saturday night takeaway, 11 million, 12 million. i'm a celebrity, 12 million. massive audiences in this day and age. the masked singer is growing a bit at the moment. masked singer, you know, started last year at 4 million, now seven to 8 million. brilliant. we know how to bring shows to screen, entertain people, and then actually build the success of their shows. drama is strong for us. i know bbc and itv, we collaborate a lot now, but we are also competitive when it

comes to drama. we have got four out of the five top dramas, which is amazing. you know des quiz, pembrokeshire murders. very proud of that. but people already announced that britain's got talent, bgt, for those of our audience who don't know what bgt stands for, that's britain's got talent. you have announced it will be cancelled this year because of covid—i9 means it's not possible to film the auditions. how are you going to fill the schedule and a hole in your ad revenue? we have got something lined up. we will be able to tell you about that. this is the moment. no, no, no do tell us. i can't. honestly, i'd get killed, so i can't. but we have got something lined up, which i think will be fantastic. what is it? is it an audition—based competition show? maybe, maybe. is simon cowell in it? i'm not saying. the reason bgt couldn't come is because of the pandemic. a lot of the acts come globally and because of travel

we just could not do it. that will come back, bgt will be back next year, no question about that. it is just a postponement of bgt. of course, disappointing. sticking with that content for a moment, what do you say to people who feel, this is not about me but a sentiment some of the listeners on the show have, in pursuit of popularity, channels like itvi in particular, had to go down—market. the spectacle of seeing sweaty celebrities eating ostrich testicles, whatever it might be, on prime—time, is not right. 12.8 million viewers... they say that is not what it is about. that is a metric about popularity. you need to get advertising against that, can —— and to your credit you do in large volumes. yes. there are people that say that is not what a culture should celebrate. culture is many faceted. one of the brilliant things tv does, notjust itv, is that it has always involved people and the public. right from the �*50s, public participation has been a really important part of tv. the public love it, viewers love it.

and so my answer to that is, we do a whole range of culture. so there is something for everybody. i think it is wrong to say that bit of our culture is not as good as that bit of our culture, because that is elitist, and that does not sound too great, really. i imagine one of the hardest moments of your tenure has been the question of the jeremy kyle show. why did you cancel that show? it was probably something we were looking at anyway, to be honest with you. we made the decision because we felt in that moment it was the right thing to do. the early briefing around that came from itv. it said jeremy kyle was coming back to itv in a different role. is he coming back to itv imminently? not that i know of. i don't know what the plans are but not that i know the moment. another challenge you faced, for which you gave evidence to a select committee following the death of some former contestants of love island, again i'm not going to go into any of the details. what did you, and by extension itv, learn from those awful events? the procedures, processes,

and duty of care that we have. literally, it is world—class. now, i know that we have strengthened that quite a lot. i think, actually, it's not because itv wasn't doing that well in the past, it's simply because social media has genuinely intensified what happens on a show where someone is out of the limelight for six weeks, goes in, quite well—known, maybe, but not really well—known, and then comes out with thousands, hundreds of thousands of instagram followers or whatever it might be. it is a big shift. we have done a lot of work on casting, on what happens in the show, but also on the after—care. we have been forensic about it. particularly through the lens of social media and what they will experience when they come out of the show. i think what we have to do is ensure people go in fully prepared with their eyes open. that is what we do. we get a lot of previous contestants to explain exactly what it will be like. you have to fully prepare, and you have to make sure

they are really going in — consenting, to this, as adults, and they really want to do it. will it be filmed in the uk this year? i don't know yet, i genuinely do not know. we will want to put love island on air because it has been off airfor a little while. we didn't do it last summer. we are getting... we are looking at all our options at the moment. the pandemic makes it hard. what is doing well at the moment in terms of formats we are selling to other countries? itv studios business is obviously massively hit by covid. which of your formats are making a lot of money? the ones you would expect. i'm a celebrity does hugely well everywhere. so does love island, actually, does very well globally. 0ur game shows. the chase. the chase is so popular everywhere, including america now. america is launching the chase. lots of other shows... actually our dramas as well. on that transformation, you say you came in to do a transformationjob. it's been hit massively

by the pandemic. that hits both production and advertising sales. but how effective has that transformation been? how much have you been able to grow the production business and digital, especially pre—pandemic? launching britbox, resetting the hub, building a data and analytics team, which we didn't have at all, we didn't have one person who did analytics in itv three years ago. that has been a big thing. really developing our tech platforms, which we've done, to be able to launch britbox which is integrated into the hub. big progress has been made already on the transformation but we've obviously got more to do. and i think one... there are not many silver linings of a pandemic but i think one thing it has done is because it has accelerated everything, including digital, it has absolutely accelerated our drive towards the strategy. it has made us much faster, we make faster decisions, we do things quicker, we are much more agile. everyone gets it because

everyone has had to work in a very different way. that is quite a positive that we will take out of this. i mentioned this thing called the communications act 2003, which nerds like me have read. you want it updated and you are campaigning loudly for it to be reformed, for primary legislation to replace it, why? 0k, look, within the next decade, tv will be distributed on the internet, not through dtt, which is terrestrial at the moment. that means, the internet means global platforms. it doesn't mean we can distribute in any other way, it means our distribution will be via amazon, apple, sky, virgin, you know, all of those massive, global platforms, right? and via tv sets, so, samsung, all the manufacturers. that is where the distribution is now. now, and is going to grow

exponentially in the future. that means that we are totally reliant as psbs on our distribution, on massive global dominated companies whose interest is to make money for their shareholders. not for the public good, not for britain. it is for them. and in the old world, in the linear world, we all have prominence, that is guaranteed in law, that if you are bbc or itv or channel 4 or channel 5, you are seen in the top listings, so that when you come to your tv set, you know you can see what's on the bbc and itv and channel 4, you just see it, because you've got prominence. and you have to be included, and you have to get some fair value for your content because you give it for free. in the digital world, none of that exists. there is no regulation of the digital world. they don't have to carry psbs if they don't want to, as channels. they don't have to give

you prominence at all. so you can imagine a world where any platform will charge for the tiles which you see on your tv now instead of your epg, your electronic programme guide. they will charge maybe the highest bidder. they will say, we will give this to the highest bidder. psbs won't be able to afford that. i know that the bigwigs in dcms listen to this show, they are listening to you right now, what is your message to them about how urgent this issue of prominence is and the consequences of inaction? i speak to dcms a lot, but my message to government is, it is bigger than dcms, this is a message, really, i think, for number 10. which is, if you don't act with urgency and pace, this ship will also sail. we are not protected in any way, just as... you know, and we shouldn't be. we are not asking for favours to protect the past. we are asking to modernise an act that was created before amazon

and facebook even existed.