An episode of Doctor Who was “pretty good”, according to BBC director-general Matt Brittin.
Brittin, who ran Google EMEA, revealed that someone recently sent him a 50-minute episode of the BBC’s long-running, entirely AI-generated sci-fi franchise, and today he refused to review it.
“Pretty good,” was Brittin’s verdict on the episode of the series that has been running on the BBC for six decades and will return with a new creative team in a few years. “I mean it won’t replace humans, but we’ll come back to that,” he retorted.
Speaking at the RTS Convention in London, Brittin echoed Amazon global boss Kelly Day in backing the power of AI. Day just said that AI “reduces costs, which means more stories can be done, more diverse voices can be heard, and more creative risks are taken.”
“Everyone (now) has the opportunity to create content almost at the level of a Hollywood studio,” he said. “In some cases it’s not perfect, but look at what you can do and it changes all the time.
Brittin’s opening speech with BBC presenter Kirsty Young came days after he said he would allow a program to be made and presented by AI “within safeguards”.
Artificial intelligence aside, Brittin’s speech comes at a very difficult time for the BBC.
Amid a mega £500 million ($662 million) savings drive that is leading to hundreds of layoffs, channel closures are expected as soon as the end of the week, with the youth-oriented BBC Three seen as being in the firing line.
Perhaps hinting at a closure of BBC Three’s linear channel, he reiterated that “if you compare on-demand consumption versus live consumption (on some of our services), you ask yourself: ‘Is this the best way to spend a pound of license fees?’ »
More generally, Brittin said he “talks daily with people whose jobs are threatened” and “does not underestimate” the difficulty of the situation.
“We are here for the same reasons as everyone else,” he added. “We need to do some consolidation.”
Brittin was speaking at the RTS Convention after Amazon’s top bosses and before Channel 4 boss Priya Dogra.
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