PR Week Echo Columns

Described as a 'feral beast' by the chairman, Jeremy Paxman savaged the television industry at the centrepiece MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival and left no one feeling comfortable. A succession of scandals over phone-ins, reality shows and less-than-honest editing meant that the whole industry, as well as his employer the BBC, needed to rediscover a sense of purpose. In general the print media, itself having had to ride the challenges posed by the internet and digital media, agreed with him and praised him for having the temerity to ask broad-ranging and tough questions of his own industry.

The Observer leader stated, however, that public trust in the BBC is still high and praised the organisation for engaging in "extraordinary self-criticism" (Aug 26). Paxman's widest reported jibe was that the licence fee system was an outdated "tax on television ownership" (rapidtvnews.com 25 Aug). The speech in full (reprinted in The Herald, Aug 28) was a "passionate and deeply personal cri de coeur about the current state of television from a master practicioner" according to Maggie Brown (mediaguardian.co.uk, Aug 27). Less reported though was C4 boss Andy Duncan's call to the heads of both the BBC and ITV for a crisis summit in September to find ways of raising standards.