SPEACH BY SIR MICHAEL LYONS, CHAIRMAN OF THE BBC TRUST.

SPEACH BY SIR MICHAEL LYONS, CHAIRMAN OF THE BBC TRUST.

The BBC has already signed an agreement with ITV proposing sharing facilities for regional news in England and Wales. The potential is there for ITV to cut its costs significantly – and, more to the point as far as audiences are concerned, the proposals could keep ITV's endangered regional news services on the air. This sharing of facilities could in principle extend to other providers, including independently funded regional news consortia.

The BBC is also developing new partnerships with commercial radio; exploring the possibility of sharing BBC content with the newspaper industry; and there's an archive partnership under way with the British Film Institute.

That's in addition to the BBC proposals to share with other broadcasters its digital production expertise; to open up the iPlayer to other broadcasters; and ongoing work with BT and the major UK ISPs on Project Canvas – a simple way of bringing the internet to domestic television sets, so that audiences can access the iPlayer and all the other riches of the web on their main TV set and not just through their laptop or PC.

But it's important to underline that the distinguishing factor here is that these initiatives enhance value for audiences and enjoy public support.

So, looking beyond the BBC, and doing what we can to help secure the wider PSB ecology and to help maintain public service choice for licence fee payers is our fourth commitment.

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