The Murdochs were in the news again this week. But this time it was Elisabeth Murdoch, who grabbed headlines for her powerful speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. It’s a terrific speech, one of the best I’ve seen in a long time by a business leader, and it is instructive not only for media companies but businesses everywhere.
The MacTaggart address is the highlight of the annual media fest. It was where Elisabeth’s brother James made his provocative remarks three years ago challenging the dominance of the BBC, just as News Corp was turning its favor toward the rising conservative party under David Cameron. Such cozy relationships were explo
ded in the ensuing phone hacking scandal, and James is still reeling from its aftermath.
So it wasn’t surprising that Elisabeth’s response to her brother and the troubles at News Corp got the headlines the next day. (My favorite was ABC Australia News: “Elizabeth Murdoch Turns on Family and Empire.”)
But her remarks readily apply to other industries that have been shaken by scandal. It’s hard not to think of financial services or the pharmaceuticals industry as you read this passage:
“As an industry – and indeed I would say as a global society – we have become trapped in our own rhetoric. We need to learn how to be comfortable with articulating purpose and reject the idea that money is the only effective measure of all things or that the free market is the only sorting mechanism.
“Do we have such faith in the imperatives of the market that we need have no will of our own other than to succeed on its terms? It’s us, human beings, we the people, who create the society we want, not profit.
“It is increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose – or of a moral language – within government, media or business, could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom.
“Independence may be characterized by the absence of the apparatus of supervision and dependency” as James said, but independence from regulation and the freedom we need to innovate and grow is only democratically viable when we accept that we have a responsibility to each other and not just to our bottom line.
“Profit must be our servant, not our master.”
That’s strong stuff, indeed.
What’s unfortunate is that the rest of the speech has been mostly ignored. In fact it has some excellent observations about how the television business is evolving amid the growth of new channels, new business models and new methods of engaging with audiences. Here’s a small taste:
“The desire to tell great stories, the impulse to commune with humanity, is not only the inspiration at the heart of our industry, it is the most reliable key to our future.
“If connecting to an audience is our motivation, and the lens through which we see ourselves, it determines how we sustain a culture of creative excellence and also how we respond to changing technologies and business models.
“Let us not forget that we are compelled to connect with the audience through moving pictures and sound. Let’s not be entombed by what we once defined as a television screen.
“Just imagine if the record labels had remembered that their business was to connect people to music – not simply to sell them CDs. Perhaps their industry wouldn’t have splintered in the way it has?
“I believe the biggest lesson for us to take on board is this – in the same way that we have allowed our priorities to be confused between purpose and profit, we seem to have got the emphasis wrong between building a community and selling a commodity.”
Find a comfortable spot and read the full text here.