Lord Puttnam was delighted to appear on BBC Radio 4’s Media Show on Wednesday 6 June 2018, where he chatted to Amol Rajan and other guests about current trends in television. Having previously headed an inquiry into the future of public service television in 2016, Lord Puttnam had some key insights on the ever-changing broadcasting landscape – from the popularity of Love Island on ITV2 to the purpose of the BBC in today’s crowded media climate.
The conversation inevitably turned to broader global developments, such as the meteoric rise of Netflix, and the race for eyeballs between new tech companies (like Apple) and traditional media companies (like the BBC). Lord Puttnam noted that Apple has probably “taken a long hard look at the process of developing content and it’s much, much harder than they imagined,” going on to predict that the company would buy Netflix in the coming 18 months. In fact, he argued that it was a ‘no-brainer’ given the extent of Apple’s financial reserves. Watch this space!