Looking to the future from historic Broadcasting House

1st July 2025

It was an honour and pleasure to be asked to help with the inaugural DINER summit at Broadcasting House in London. This pioneering event was organised by the BBC’s inspirational and irritatingly young and energetic Jonny McGuigan - a former colleague at the Beeb in Leeds - and hosted by him and the Danish dynamo Diana Skotte. It brought together Public Service Media organisations from across Europe and North America to share their approaches and to talk honestly about plans that have worked - and those which haven’t.

I was ‘co-facilitator’ helping, particularly in break-out groups, to make sure the shared simple rules were observed among a group of passionate, talkative experts - a mix of big bosses and more junior frontline staff. We discussed, amongst much else, ‘news avoidance’, social media, vertical video (are you reading this on your phone, holding it upright? Thought so …) and reaching younger audiences. How DO you, with a public service purpose and mission, reach infrequent users of your services when there’s vital news to deliver?

Those rules I mention were key - open, honest, candid conversations with no agenda or sales pitches and an equal voice for all. In their different ways, in in their different countries, it’s clear the broadcasters present are all facing similar questions. As Jonny put it: “Public Service organisations must help each other as we face these existential challenges in the coming years. We may not have found all the answers, but we’ve landed on some good bets to set to work on!” We met, he said, not as competitors but as colleagues on a shared mission.

Diana Skotte, who’s based in Copenhagen, spent many years working at the Danish public service broadcaster DR. She now runs her own business and has a powerful, simple motto: “I believe that people can change and that people can make change”. I learnt a great deal and met a group of wonderful, talented folk - delegates and speakers from the public service broadcasters in Canada (CBC), Denmark, the Netherlands (NOS), Norway (NRK), Sweden (SVT) and Switzerland (SRF). And all in the historic home of the oldest of them all, the British Broadcasting Corporation which I joined as a trainee radio journalist in 1989, working for the corporation for more than 34 years. Those public service values run through me like ‘Scarborough’ through a stick of seaside rock.

And you may well be wondering what DINER stands for? This DINER wasn’t serving all-day breakfasts but stands for Digital Innovation in News, building Engagement and Reach.

If I can help as a facilitator, co-facilitator, conference chair, meeting host or professional referee used to letting everyone have their fair say, do please get in touch: https://www.theandrewedwards.com/contact