Liz Warner: Television Lecture 2016

Factual producer and executive Liz Warner has warned that “the younger generation are not switching on, television is failing the young” as she delivered a special lecture on creativity in television.

Arguing that younger people are being let down and moving online to both watch and create their own content, she warned that television is at risk at losing an entire generation to the internet.

“We have failed to engage with a whole generation of digital talent,” she said.

• Read a full transcript of the event

Speaking on 7 July 2016, Warner showed brilliant insight and wit as she explained that she had spent the past year “going to the future” and exploring the work of young creatives working online.  She stated that “if TV doesn’t provide the puerile, risky or anarchic, young people will seek it elsewhere online.”

To stress her point, Warner even summoned five birthday cakes to the stage at one point, each representing the average viewer age of the terrestrial channels: BBC One and BBC Two (62), ITV (60), Channel 5 (58) and Channel 4 (55). Remarkably, Warner revealed that youth-orientated channel E4 has an average viewer age of 42.

Warner then went on to say: “I think TV needs to turn and find a way to work with digital talents and spend real money in this area. Not commission three shorts for its on demand service, that is not a digital strategy. Genuine money spent will help form a genuine connection with a younger audience and shift value to longer form digital.” And then later closed by calling for British television to get naughty again: ”let’s break the rules, let’s challenge form, and spend some serious money on the digital.”