Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I need to set this up for our American audience. Sir Howard Stringer is from the low side of Wales called Cardiff. David Blanchflow of Dartmouth is from Cardiff as well, and he had the most interesting, interesting start to his career. You know him of course from Sony. You know him perhaps from CBS. Paul Sweni and I can do a three hour discussion. We're stringing. He's seventy nine and holding you know, Paul,
Just so you sure understand. Sir Howard Stringer joins us this morning here but specifically on the BBC and what it means for his United Kingdom. Sir Howard Stringer, thank you so much for joining Bloomberg this morning.
My pleasure.
I look, Sir Howard, at the debacle of the BBC and let me just get out of the way. The arch question may be alluded to by the former Prime Minister Johnson, Well, should the BBC leave as a publicly funded effort and join private enterprise?
I would say not. I would say the brilliance of the BBC. It was designed as an institution that would be fairer and offer truth and fairness to a British audience and subsequently to a worldwide audience with a worldwide news network, and in many ways American television was built on that standard. And so giving that trust up, giving that opportunity up, I think would be a mistake.
How do they restructure emotionally? How do they recapture the minds of the United Kingdom to say you can trust us. It's been shattered with its debate with the president, the President Trump folks suggesting you will sue the BBC for many billions of dollars. Howard Stringer, what is the first step to rekindle a new trust with the British.
Well, I think with all great institutions, leadership is critical, and presumably there will be discussions about who runs the BBC now very quickly and how the board is constructed, and lessons will be learned. I think that's been true across the board. When I was at CBS News we were under attack by the government. I had conversations in a lawsuit with General Westmerland, and before that, I had
conversations with Presidents Nixon and Reagan that news divisions. News division is only a part of the BBC, but news divisions are always the threat to politicians, and politicians tend to dislike you if you suggest they're wrong. BBC has always been had a reputation for fanness. Now it's under attack now and I think I think lessons will be loned regardless of what we feel about it. But the BBC is very important to global democracy and I think President Trump knows that.
Howard Stringer with this, Sir Howard Stringer, folks this morning here with all of his work with Sony and CBS News over the years, we welcome all of you in particularly the United Kingdom this morning with the uproar over the bb C. Paul Sweeney with Sir.
Howard Howard, how does the BBC? How is it positioned in the UK today in the media overall media landscape? Maybe how has that changed over time?
Well? I think.
I think it's misunderstood or dimly perceived in the in the US. After all, I spent most of my life in a matter, I worked thirty years at CBS. But today the BBC still has the top rated entertainment broadcasts in a way that would be CBS today would be proud, or NBC would be proud. I mean before Christmas, the top ten programs on television at England were BBC programs. But this story is about news. News is always the catalyst for politicians who disagree with opinions that they perceive
to be either unfair or inappropriate. That was true when I was at CBS, and it's true it's true in England today. So it's a it's a lesson for both sides. If you're going to deal with presidents and deal with issues, you have got to be fair and you've got to have the audience believe in the in the institutions you represent. And for many years, the BBC was a byword for
trust and fairness around the world worldwide news. The BBC operation is the most trusted globally, and I've had people call me many times in the last few weeks of saying, protect us because we watched the BBC, because nothing else works for us in wherever country they're calling from. So the President of the United States observed a moment that is a challenge to the BBC News operation, which I think they understand and accept, and apologies should maybe have
been offered earlier. But I think the BBC knows what its responsibilities are.
Howard, do you believe that the damages being sought by President Trump are reasonable or how do you think about that side?
I think it's reasonable. But I also think that the President Trump knows Britain very well. I knew him person and he was very generous to me. And suing the BBC is sending a message that be fair, be true to yourself. Whether or not England will play a billion dollars, I don't. I doubt that they will, and I doubt that President Trump really wants that. I think he wants the BBC in a funny kind of a way to behave.
We welcome all of you worldwide on YouTube, our new digital distribution, and of course on radio from our various sources ninety nine one FM in Washington, ninety two nine FM in Boston, Ploomberg eleven three or New York. Sir Howard Stringer with us this morning. With his decades of work. You hear heard him speak of General Wes Moreland. There what takes us a star back? Just to give you a little vignette, Sir Howard Stringer at a very young
age answering telephones backstage for the Ed Sullivan Show. This goes back a few decades, Sir Howard, let me ask a delicate question of the United Kingdom. The present beliaguered and resigned leader of the BBC is perceived as a marketing guy. You were in the New York Times talking about this. How does the BBC get back to the intensity you're speaking about? Do they have to find a world class journalist to drive forward?
Well?
I think that the mistakes that were made, which have been accumulative presented accumulatively, gives a mistaken impression that there's something institutionally wrong with the BBC news. These were mistakes that have now been acknowledged and should have been acknowledged earlier. But I don't think there's anything about the BBC that
should be suspect. I think the BBC, like Britain, is an astonishing ally of the United States, that an important one, and I think the President of the United States know that. In my dealings with him, I think he knew it, and he was always fair and generous. I think he's fired a shot across the brows of the BBC. They will pay attention. They are made changes and that will
be good. But the BBC is an important global institution and I don't believe he's not breaking up great institutions during a crisis.
Look sir, just one final question if we could in the BBC, and we must turn to so much going on in Paul Sweeney's world in New York is well in talking to our Eric Larsen off our desk on Queen Victoria's Street and looking at the litigation here as well, how will that play out in the United Kingdom and form our American audience of how a lawsuit in London is different than a lawsuit wherever in the United States.
I'm not sure I really understand that question.
Well, I mean, the litigation is going to be in the United Kingdom, how is it different there? If the President sues the BBC, then it would be here.
Well, I was sued in America, as you remember, over the General westbl I think, and it went on for years.
And I don't think. I don't think President Trump will keep at this. I think he is much bigger fish to fry. I think he has made sent a very important message. I think the BBC will respond accordingly, and I hope he doesn't expect the British public to pay that kind of money. I think his generosity will will save the day.
Sir heartstringer with a sok thrilled to have them with us this morning. Let me migrate, Sir Howard to the United States and ask a question that so many will resonate with so much of our listeners and viewers. Could Dan rather do the news today?
Does Dan rather?
What? Could he do the news today? Could Dan rather grind out his leadership in news off the desk of CBS as he did years ago? Could he do that in this environment today?
Well, he can't do it now.
I mean he's he's still in good shape the last time I spoke to him, and I spoke to him quite recently. But no, I don't think he would want to become an anchorman in his nineties, and I don't want to become a director general in my eighties either. But I think so much has changed in America, has been fractionalized, and the networks aren't as strong as they used to be. When I was running the evening news, we had a twenty six share of the news compared
to ABC twenty and NBC twenty. That combined audience was almost seventy percent of the national audience. That isn't possible in the United States today because of the fractionalvisation and the growth of competitive social media. So you know, another Dan rather is likely to be unlikely. But I am not watching from a distance all the current ankormen, and I don't know who. I don't know anyone will ever have the power of Walter and Down again or Tom Broke or and Roger mud and so forth. It's just
the nature of the world. It's changing. But I think retaining some of the values, and the values that the most important are trust and honesty, and as long as we abide by those, and the BBC resurrects itself its reputation by concentrating on what it does best, we'll survive this, just as CBS did survive.
General Westmorland, Sir Howard, from your years at Sony Corporation, a major global media entertainment company, what do you make of the lands now? So much has changed with Netflix and streaming and so on and so forth. How do you feel like some of these traditional large global media companies like Sony, like the Walt Disney Company, like Warner Brothers. How do you think that landscape shakes out here?
That's a billion dollar question. Unfortunately, it is a billion dollar question. Money plays a much bigger role than it used to. There were three networks and then Rupert Modoch built up Fox, so there were four networks, and now it's scattered and so forth, and people get what they want. But I think keeping keeping solidarity and solidity at the center of the core institutions, you will find an audience, just as movies do. So I'm not prone to despair.
I keep myself amused today doing radio dramas, and I still reach people in America and England, So I I don't think there's plenty of good material. It's just not as concentrated as it used to be. But you can't look at the past. As somebody once said, the past is a foreign country, and they did things differently there.
Sir Howard. So going forward here, I mean, it's interesting the world's changed so much in terms of delivering content to consumers. Consumers can now get anything they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. Is this a better world for consumers and content? Do you believe?
Well?
I think it's more complicated because so many choices are a bit confusing, and so truth becomes a little more obscure. As people listen to whoever they listened to yesterday, they switched to somebody else today. So I think our customers are maybe a bit confused. But we still have to provide great content and people will find it, we'll watch it. And I saw the other day a new movie about Shakespeare as a young man and his and his family, and I thought, well, there's a lot of talent in
America and it still will attract an audience. So breathe a sigh of relief and keep on trying.
Sir Harard, thank you so much for joining Bloomberg this morning. Sir Hard Stringer, of course, with all of his work at Sony, I should note that he had a radio broadcast earlier this year on the BBC called Central Intelligence, which won many different awards in the United Kingdom.