"My Destiny" speech

Tonight I am addressing my old chums at the Oxford Union (what fond memories of my youth!)

Make no mistake about it. This is like launching a political campaign and I need to have all the trappings of a Corporation One Top-Level Executive if I am going to secure The Big Job.

So Hincksy has very kindly promised to drive me up in his car:




Here's a sneaky peak at my speech. I cannot wait for Thommo to hear this!

"Good evening.

I look around this grand, historic hall and then I look down at you. The young creative intelligent minds of the future. The people that will someday lead governments, industry and, most importantly, the media.

You, my friends, are the future. Your turn will deservedly come. Just as mine has come now.

You see, ten or twelve years ago, I was exactly like you.

I was bright, intelligent, hard-working and ambitious.

I still am.

I studied here for three years, dreaming of my future. Well tonight, I'm going to reveal exactly where my future lies.

Lord Reith once said it was the Corporation's job to educate, inform and entertain.

One day, our current Director General Mark Thompson will become a Lord, and his mantra will be remembered too: To reach out and touch the audience.

I am one of Mark's New Generation of creatives, here to implement His Vision. It is my job to boldly go where no channel controller has gone before. To always strive for what is beyond the event horizon. To innovate, motivate and creatively exfoliate, so I can be the best a man can be™.

It is the only way we can keep ahead of the curve and provide value for money for all our users.

Yes, you heard me right. User as opposed to viewer.

You see the next generation don't just "view" the media. They "use" it.

And by the same token, they can also "abuse" it.

And we have to make sure that this self abuse does not tarnish the hard work being done to harness the eyeballs of the New User Generation.

And who are these New Users? You are.

You are the ones who'll want to buy homes, find good schools for your kids, and have amazing holidays in far-flung places abroad. Television can feed these important life stages with itchy reality™ programming.

I put it to you, in an age of concern over fakery, deception and spin, that we need to ensure that the Corporation never fails its audience. Be them your parents, grandparents or your nephews.

Or you.

Because it is your generation that matters to me.

When I was your age, I used to think: Why isn't there a channel just for me?

What I want to see is the Corporation becoming this beacon of media light. It is not simply a pipedream, it is my destiny. And it is here, and it is now.

The Corporation has more difficult and painful decisions to make. Like who should be leading Corporation One, our flagship channel, into 2008 and beyond.

For the Corporation to survive and to remain relevant to its users, it's simply not enough to have young creative visionaries like myself pigeon holed into running "youth" programming. That's like saying that the people who run the Asian Network can't work in network television. Ludicrous!

The new breed of Television Executive who is in touch with contemporary culture, like myself, should be driving the future development of our broadcasting crown-jewels.

I hope you agree.

If it is my destiny, then you have been privileged here tonight to listen to my oration and I put it to you to decide for yourself whether the Corporation will be bold and brave enough to make what I think is a momentous decision.

Thank you and good night Oxford

[PS. Remember to pump right hand in the air at this point during rapturous applause]

[PPS. Remember to have Anthony video it all from the back of the hall]