Mr. Alan Esslemont:

The lesson to be learned from Facebook and TripAdvisor is that people are looking for one digital solution. I worked in Britain for the past ten years. To an extent, broadcasters in the United Kingdom are beginning to acknowledge that while they need to compete on content, they should co-operate in the use of infrastructure. There has been talk of the BBC iPlayer being turned into an open iPlayer in order that there would be one deep well of digital content in which people would be able to access British content. In other words, one would be able to access programmes on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in the same place.

It would add to the passing traffic. They have done it because they realise the competition is Facebook and Netflix. It is not the BBC against ITV any more. In the same way radio has done a great job creating a single player, if we can hold onto our brands but create a shared digital space, it would be good, especially for younger people. Young Irish speakers want to do the normal thing. If the normal thing is to go to a place that is mainly English, we will lose a hold on this audience. Co-operation can help with all audiences, especially young audiences.