Tony Hall's keynote address to the Children’s Global Media Summit

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This follows a screening of the BBC's animated short film for Christmas, The Supporting Act

Introduction
"Good morning.

I love that video. It’s a brilliant marriage of storytelling, creativity, and tech - and, by the way, those characters and their wonderful world were made here in Manchester.

We’re really proud of what we do in this city, and with this city.

It’s the home of all our children’s services, the home of our charity, Children In Need.

And it’s a city that this year stood together in the face of an appalling attack, and in doing so moved and inspired us all.

The BBC was honoured to partner Ariana Grande’s One Love concert, a concert that was defined by dignity and defiance, and showcased the spirit of Manchester the world over.

As you heard, in Tony Walsh’s words, this is a place where we don’t do 'No Can Do', we just stress 'Yes We Can'!

That’s why all of us are here today. We know that, together, we have a real opportunity to create a media world that can do more than ever before for children and for their future.

We want to encourage their creativity. Give them the skills and confidence that will enable them to thrive. Help them to communicate, collaborate, and keep each other safe.

I remember visiting a group of academics last year in Teesside, in the North East of England. They told me how strong the evidence is that the whole pattern of a young person’s life is fixed in those first crucial years. They told me how bright optimistic children, with great ideas about their future, were told by families and friends not to bother.

And the age they gave up, the age they fell back on the idea that it’s impossible for them to better themselves? When they’re eight years old.

That’s dreadful. How can we allow this?

We need to do everything we can, right now, to create a media future for children that we can be proud of. So we can all look back in 10 years’ time and be sure that we didn’t let a generation down.

A critical moment
What can be done? This is a critical moment - maybe even an existential moment - for those of us in the media industry. We know that if you are not relevant to a kid’s world today, you will simply not be relevant in the future.

We’ve been reminded this morning of just how much has changed in the media world, and how the pace of that change is far faster than many predicted.

Let me say at the outset, I believe choice is a great thing. It’s fantastic that we’re all offering so much to young people. When I was a child the choices I had were so limited - there was Bill and Ben and Johnny Morris’ Animal Magic. Dennis The Menace was just a comic – it’s great to see him reinvented, by the BBC, for TV.

I loved all that, but what I’d give to be a kid today! With such an incredible world of choice from Minecraft and Pokémon GO, to everything on offer from Toca Boca and LEGO, to - you’ll forgive the mention - CBeebies Playtime Island and BBC iPlayer Kids.

And the fact that so many of us are in this room - leaders in our industry from Netflix to Amazon, Google to Facebook, Disney to ABC, Viacom to YouTube and so many more besides - is a sign that all of us are not only constantly asking ourselves how we can stay relevant, but also how we can stay responsible.

Today I want to talk about how the BBC is responding to this challenge. About what we believe is our public service role in the digital age. Our manifesto, if you like, for children - and how we think we can work with others to deliver it.

But first I want to say a few words about the broader debate, and some of the issues we all now face.

Uncharted territory
We all know that anxiety about major advances in technology is nothing new.

In the 18th Century, the birth of the novel had reports of an 'epidemic of reading' sweeping Europe, driving promiscuity and speeding moral decline. In fact, throughout history, everything from sofas to streetlights, the waltz to rock’n’roll, railways to bicycles have caused outbreaks of moral panic.

But this feels different: the speed and scale of change is electrifying - and it’s only getting faster. The digital world is opening up extraordinary possibilities for young people. It has the potential to benefit virtually every area of their lives, from education and learning to health and wellbeing to creativity, self-expression and play.

But we also know that it is opening them up to real and pressing dangers.

Even those who led the way confess to not being sure where we are headed.

It’s telling that people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were careful to bring up their children with firm restrictions on tech. And all of us will have heard Sean Parker, the founding President of Facebook, speaking recently. He talked about how social media was designed from the start explicitly to be addictive and exploit a vulnerability in human psychology.

He said: “God knows what we’re doing to our children’s brains.”

I remember - you all will too - a video that went viral a few years ago. It showed a one year-old girl inspecting a magazine. She tries to swipe it, she tries to expand it, she presses it to make it play - and in frustration she throws it away.

For a toddler, we were told, a magazine is just a tablet that’s broken. Technology has rewired children’s minds.

But for me the most striking thing was almost the opposite: technology being sophisticated enough to make use of the fine-motor skills that one year-olds have been practising for millennia, and opening up a whole new world of excitement and opportunity.

By the way, if we needed any reminder of the point about pace of change and urgency, that girl will now be about eight years old. That means - according to a recent survey - that her tech capabilities outstripped those of her parents around two years ago.

You may remember that report from Australia last month, where a mother was wondering why a delivery driver from UberEATS had turned up at her door with a large serving of McDonald’s fries - until she worked out that her six year-old son had found her old phone, charged it up, broken the passcode, and placed an order via the app.

When you think that the average age for children to receive their first smartphone is now 10, it’s not unlikely that that one year-old girl with the magazine will have one on her Christmas list, alongside the other must-haves, like Hatchimals or Star Wars BB-8 - all, by the way, connected toys in one way or another.

Helping children navigate their world
But it’s important to remember that the response to that video was divided between those who fell back in horror, and those who saw it as the latest milestone on a path to a bright, tech-led future.

Today, views on the influence of tech within society are still very much conflicted.

We have parents who are hugely concerned about their children being isolated when they see them glued to their phones at home, in the car, in bed first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

Who get nervous when children describe their phone as their “best friend”.

But they also increasingly recognise that, for vast numbers of children, online offers them an entirely new space to make, to create, to discover and assert their identity.

Look at what tablets and the Apple pencil are doing for children learning to draw. Or think of the kind of friendships you can have - way beyond the playground we all remember.

It’s exciting, liberating, life-affirming. And it can also help them cope with issues around family, school, health, or disability that might have left them feeling overwhelmingly isolated just a generation ago.

Then there are children who are hugely savvy about the online world, who don’t lump 'social media' into one heap like we might do.

Who are smart and discerning about the apps they use, and see different platforms as distinct as their grandparents saw telephones and television.

But while they’re quick to tell you that you don’t Snapchat in your school uniform if you want to protect yourself from strangers, at the same time they find it really hard to distinguish online between what’s real and what’s false.

As a recent BBC report showed, they struggle to tell the difference between a serious headline in a national newspaper and satirical one in The Onion.

For me, the lesson is that we cannot be tempted to oversimplify the arguments.

One day we read reports that screen time is making young children smarter; the next that it harms their development.

One day we hear about the dangers of VR for children’s eyesight; the next, we’re told it could be crucial to early identification and even treatment of vision disorders.

The reality is that there is so much we don’t know about how digital affects young people.

Researchers and scientists worldwide are working right now to try to get to grips with every aspect: from the impact on their behaviours and values, to their mental and physical health, to their neurological development.

There will be no easy answers.

It’s in everybody’s interest to maximise the amazing opportunities for children growing up in a fully connected world - but we must also take steps to minimise the risks.

And if it’s tough for parents, experts and tech leaders to understand the forces at play, of course it’s far tougher for children. They may have all the technological know-how at their disposal, but there is no real evidence that their emotional development is any more advanced today than that of their grandparents.

We know that this gap makes young people vulnerable.

And it underlines that it’s now more important than ever that we step up and take action to protect them. After all, it’s childhood that’s at stake.

Next year there are new Europe-wide data regulations coming our way. Every organisation is getting to grips with them and what they mean for business. And they will undoubtedly turn up the heat on this debate:

• For example, what is the right age for children to give informed consent for the use of their data online?
• What responsibility should organisations have to make sure their platform is right for the age range who are really using it?
• By the age of 12, half of all children in this country have a social media profile - but we all know that’s not supposed to happen until they’re 13.
• And what about terms and conditions? Have you ever read the terms and conditions of the online services you’ve signed up to? How do we expect children to make sense of them if we can’t? Can we really deem this informed consent?

These debates are complex. Getting the answers right really matters.

These are global platforms, appealing to children growing up in different cultures and with different expectations.

It’s clear we need to work together, across international boundaries (just like those platforms children love to use) to find a way to provide them with a world that is fun, playful, clear and safe.

Reinventing PSB for a new generation
This is a responsibility for us all. But for public service broadcasters, for the BBC, it’s fundamental - it’s part of the reason we exist.

And yet, just at the moment that public service broadcasting is needed more than ever, it is coming under assault.

Now, it won’t surprise you to hear that I believe public service broadcasting matters. In fact, I believe it will matter more in the future than ever before in its history - because it’s needed more than ever before.

At the BBC, it has always been our mission to inform, educate and entertain the whole country - and to inspire too.

That included our youngest audiences right from the start: from the very first radio programme for children when we began broadcasting in 1922, Children’s Hour, to their very first TV show in 1946, For The Children.

We have the longest-running children’s programme in the world in Blue Peter - 60 next year.

Doctor Who has been going for more than 50 years, and in that time has evolved with its audiences, making the leap from niche, children’s sci-fi to a global phenomenon.

And it’s because we have been part of the fabric of childhood for so many generations of children in the UK, that they - now as adults - want us to play a big part in the lives of their own children in turn.

That’s why we can have a huge Hollywood star like Tom Hardy reading bedtime stories for CBeebies – he said it was great to appear in something that was actually appropriate for his kids to watch.

In fact - we haven’t announced it yet - but I can tell you that we’ve now got two other great British stars lined up to read bedtime stories over the festive period: Eddie Redmayne on Christmas Day, and Emily Watson on Boxing Day.

Creating great programmes and exciting moments for young audiences is absolutely in our DNA.

That’s part of the reason that, even in a world where there is so much competition for young people’s time and attention, we’re still the most watched and most loved for UK children.

We know they want the BBC to be a place they can rely on for news and information they can trust: for high-quality content, for help with their education (to learn about the world and their place in it), and also to be entertained - surprised - and just made to laugh.

But we can never be complacent. And, of course, we’re very much aware that older and younger audiences are increasingly consuming media in different ways.

Last year, for the first time, 5-15 year-olds in the UK spent more time online than in front of a TV.

For adults overall, linear TV accounts for nearly two-thirds of their video viewing. For 16-24s it is barely one third.

The exact figures may look different in your country. But, from the conversations I’ve had, it seems we’re all heading in the same direction. For many of us in the media industry, competing successfully for young people’s time and attention is one of the biggest strategic challenges we all now face.

That’s why the major ambition I have set the whole of the BBC as we move towards our second century is to reinvent public service broadcasting for a new generation.

This work is well underway. But I want to pick out three areas in which we believe that, working in partnership with others, we can make a real difference for young people.

The three pillars of our children’s manifesto.

1. Making truly outstanding content

The first is by making truly outstanding content. High-quality, distinctive programmes that speak directly to young audiences and respond to their aspirations.

Earlier this year, we announced our biggest investment in children’s content and services in a generation - an additional 34 million pounds to help us reimagine how we serve our youngest audiences in the years ahead.

It means that we are taking a totally fresh look at our offer.

We want to encourage children to explore. To be creative. And to get inspired.

And we want to experiment with new forms of content and new ways for young people to interact with our services.

In today’s global media landscape, the choice for young people is near-limitless.

No generation has ever had such an extraordinary wealth of content to choose from, with no geographical boundaries to restrict them.
But even with all this choice and great global content, we know that children and young people really value programmes that relate directly to their lives.

Home-grown content that can help them make sense of the world and their place in it. And not just programmes that are designed for the family, but shows that are conceived and created specifically for them.

Shows just like Pablo.

It’s the very first animated TV series to star an autistic character and the first with an all-autistic core cast too.

One mother got in touch with the team to tell them what a profoundly positive effect the show had on her autistic son.
Pablo, he said, is "just like me".

We take pride in reflecting as many different lives as we can on screen. That means putting children centre stage in everything we do for them.

It means live action drama for pre-schoolers starring under-5s - they say never work with animals or children, but we say it’s the right thing to do…

And I’m really delighted we’re bringing that same sensibility to what we’re doing for young teens in future.

Part of our new 34 million pound investment is to develop new formats and ideas for 12-15s.

We’ll have more to say about that next year.  But what’s great is that tech isn’t just helping us reach people in new ways, it’s allowing us to create differently.

Recently we’ve commissioned a new programme set in a high school in Edinburgh, that doesn’t just push the boundaries for this young teen audience in subject matter, but also – as an improvised drama – in form.

But the biggest thing we’re focusing on, for all our audiences, young and old, is personalisation.

Using data to create a BBC that is tailored uniquely to everyone who chooses us.

We’re already rolling out sign-in for our services, and this is going to help every child and every parent get even more value from the BBC.
Because tech gives us the opportunity to ensure we’re offering content that’s individual to each child – tailored to their likes and needs – while offering parents new ways to give their kids permissions and keep them safe.

Our goal is to create, for every child, their own unique gateway to access the whole world of the BBC.

Not just our dedicated children’s programmes and services, but everything else we do that’s fun, interesting, and appropriate to them.

Big, primetime entertainment shows like Strictly, for example - you might know it as Dancing with the Stars. It’s hugely popular with young audiences.

So is our Premier League highlights show, Match of The Day, and David Attenborough’s natural history latest, Blue Planet II, is an extraordinary hit with children – the biggest factual programme of the year for 4-15 year olds.

We want them to skip safely and seamlessly from drama to comedy to music to natural history and research for their science GCSEs. To discover everything they love and everything they need, but also things they don’t yet know they love, and that can inspire and stimulate them in new ways.

What we do to help children with their formal education is another good example of where we’re heading.

Today, BBC Bitesize is our free, online study resource designed to help school-aged students across the UK prepare for schoolwork and exams.

It’s used by nearly half of primary school students each term, and 8 out of 10 of those in secondary school … and more than half of them say it’s helped them achieve better grades.

But in a personalised world, we want it to do even more - to be much more tailored to the specific needs of each young person.

Imagine the possibilities of learning that is truly targeted… That responds to their individual progress, adapts to their strengths and weaknesses. That’s dedicated to bringing out their very best.

This is what we’re working on.

But we are also asking ourselves what more we can do with that incredible relationship we’ve built.

How can we use it to help them with other areas where they might need individual help? Everything from guidance on subject choices and careers, to support with their mental health, to guidance on how to make good choices online.

2. Driving standards and values
And this is where I come to the second area where I think, working with others, we can bring about real change: driving standards and values.

I said earlier that many of the issues around the impacts of technology will take time to understand.

But we’re all aware that some issues are not nuanced or open to debate… They are clear cut, they’re pressing moral problems…

We know they are doing real harm right now… And, left unchecked, they will lead to a dangerous and damaging future for children’s media.

Children exposed daily to unfiltered content that is harmful and inappropriate. Internet platform providers taking no responsibility for what appears on their platforms. An online environment that fails to protect children from all kinds of cyberbullying - flaming and trolling, excluding, outing, or revenge porn.

I’m delighted that the Duke of Cambridge will be joining us to take part in this summit.

I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with The Duke on this subject and have been struck by his personal commitment and conviction when it comes to children and their wellbeing online.

I know when you hear him speak tomorrow you’ll see it too.

The Duke and the Royal Foundation have already shown real leadership on the issue of mental health.

And, in a world where countless surveys report that adults find it hard on social media - where they say it can have negative effects on their well-being - the issues for young people are even more acute.

We are only just starting to understand what it means to grow up with an indelible digital footprint, without the ability to learn from your mistakes and exercise the right to be a child.

Now the Duke and the Royal Foundation are taking the lead on the issue of online bullying: bringing together a dedicated taskforce and spearheading the Stop Speak Support campaign – a ‘Green Cross Code’ for cyberbullying.

The BBC is proud to be a member of the taskforce. And we’re really excited about the opportunity to work with others to help find the right answers.

In particular, to help make technology part of the solution for young people.That’s why tomorrow we are launching a brand new BBC website, designed specifically to help kids develop the confidence and resilience they need to thrive in the digital space.

It’s aimed at 9-12s. That’s an age group we know are particularly affected by the day-to-day pressures and dilemmas of life online. And it offers them guidance on what they say they want help with.

It’s called ‘Own it’, because it’s there to help them take control and be the boss of their online lives.

We’re delivering it in partnership with a whole range of organisations in the field of child internet safety, and it’s all supported by an ‘engine room’ of expert advisors - doctors and academics who are specialists in this field.

Our goal is to create a one-stop shop, where children can find everything they need to navigate their lives online with confidence and positivity.

3. Empowering young people
And this brings me to the third way in which I believe we can make a difference.

It’s picked out very clearly as one of the five themes this summit is built around, but it’s something that I want to highlight in particular this morning: and that’s empowerment.

Instead of thinking about how we might restrict children’s activities in the digital world, we need to focus on how we build a world that gives them freedom.

That equips them with the skills they need to make the most of that freedom, and to express themselves in the digital world.
This is something we care passionately about at the BBC.

And one of the projects we’re proud of is the BBC micro:bit – part of our Make it Digital campaign, focusing on digital skills.
You may have heard Dave Coplin talk about it earlier.

It’s a coding device that we gave to every 11-12 year old in the country last summer. In other words, up to a million young people around the UK got a micro:bit of their own.

Our goal was to help inspire them to get coding, and invest in the future skills they, and the country, need.

But to do it we needed to bring together more than 30 partners.

Companies like ARM, Barclays, Microsoft, and Samsung contributed everything from hardware, software and design to manufacture and distribution.

It’s another great example of what you can achieve when you bring a really strong partnership together around a really clear mission – far more than any of us could do on our own.

But supporting young people is not just about investing in skills and creativity.

School Report is another really good initiative that we’ve been running for more than ten years.
It’s a journalism project that offers all 11-18 year olds the chance to tell the news stories that matter to them, in their own way, and take them to a worldwide audience via the BBC.

It’s open all year round, with around 60,000 taking part. But once a year we hold BBC News Day, when we throw open the doors of our newsrooms around the country to young people.

We offer them the chance to talk to our journalists, to take a look behind the scenes… Or actually to appear on our local and national news bulletins – whether it’s interviewing Rory McIlroy or reporting on teenage sleep for the national evening news.

One of the things they learn, of course, is the principles of good journalism.

And, in the world of fake news, we think we can take this further, and do more to empower young people to take control of their lives online.

A few weeks ago one of our reporters went into a secondary school in Birmingham to hear direct from young teenagers about how they distinguish between fact and fiction.

I have to say, it was alarming to see how even these bright, very savvy, very switched on pupils struggle to cope with the volume of information coming at them every day.

When they were asked to tell the difference between real and fake news headlines, they asked themselves all the right questions – Does the source seem trustworthy? Does it look plausible? – But they arrived at all the wrong conclusions.

It was really hard for them even to recognise that different agendas were at play – let alone to understand what they were.
We at the BBC have a real responsibility here.

We’re the most trusted source of news in the country – one of the most trusted worldwide… We’ve got real breadth and specialism in this area to bring to bear.

That’s why, as of next March, we will going into schools to help tackle the fake news problem.

By sharing our journalistic expertise, we want to give young people the skills and awareness they need to be confident about identifying the real news stories, and calling out the fakes.

Tomorrow we’re chairing a panel session where we’ll talk in detail about our plans.

By bringing our expertise together with our schools network, we’re going to bring the knowledge of the newsroom to the schoolroom.
But there’s another way in which we want to help make sure that we’re listening to the needs of children.

Just as we did for the micro:bit, I want us to be the catalyst for a whole coalition of us to come together.

We want to set up a panel – across the industry, and across borders – dedicated to finding ways to reach out and empower children whose voices are seldom heard… Where we can push for real progress together.

We know this isn’t easy – but it’s too important to ignore.

It will take determination, innovation, and commitment. But we have those in spades and we’d love you to join us if you feel as passionately about this as we do.

It’ll make us more joined up, more collaborative, than ever.

It will give children a voice they’ve never had before – and I hope it will be one of the important legacies of this summit.

Conclusion

I’m grateful for the chance to speak to you this morning. To set out the BBC’s manifesto for children’s media, and how we plan to deliver it.

But we’re all here because we know that we can’t make a difference alone.

It’s only by working together - towards common goals, with shared standards and values - that we will create the world children are relying on us for

I believe that this summit, the people in this room, have a real opportunity to make a genuine leap forward in these few days – and a real responsibility.

Let’s seize the moment, and let’s make it count.