The Conservative peer chosen to oversee regulation of the internet has said he does not use social media but is aware of how it works thanks to his children.
Michael Grade confirmed to MPs that he was not on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and had never been tempted by a “dance video” on TikTok. Despite this he said he had enough understanding of the key issues to be chair of the media regulator, Ofcom, which has been tasked with implementing the forthcoming online safety bill that will impose new standards on tech companies.
He told parliament: “I wouldn’t say I have no experience – I have three kids. I have a 23-year-old student son who is never off his screen. I do understand the dynamics. We can’t be experts in every single aspect of the turf that Ofcom has to patrol.”
The SNP MP John Nicolson suggested Lord Grade’s “lack of engagement with such an important part of contemporary life” could prove problematic when regulating the internet. The 79-year-old’s career was mainly spent in broadcast television at the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
While discussing so-called cancel culture, Grade also defended the right of Laurence Fox, the actor turned anti-lockdown campaigner, to express his views. He said: “I have known his family. His grandfather and my father were partners in business going back a long way. I admire his courage in speaking out and contributing to the debate. I don’t necessarily agree with what he says, but I admire him speaking out.”
The veteran broadcasting executive was named last week as the government’s preferred choice to lead the media regulator following a chaotic two-year search for a suitable candidate. Although he was obliged to appear in front of a pre-confirmation hearing of MPs, they have no ability to block his appointment, which followed the government’s failed attempts to install the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre in the role.
Grade said he was a long-term “adversary” of Dacre, with the Daily Mail labelling him Britain’s “pornographer-in-chief” in the 1990s when he was putting programmes such as The Word and Brass Eye on Channel 4.
He also stood by his comments that Channel 4 would be better off privatised, as well his description of the BBC licence fee as “regressive”. He said it was up to parliament to decide on a future funding model for the national broadcaster: “I described the licence fee as regressive. I didn’t think that was an opinion, I thought that was a statement of fact, actually.”
The Conservative peer said his three-year tenure overseeing the media regulator would be judged on whether he was successful at “cleaning up the excesses” of the internet. Grade said a key issue for Ofcom was hiring highly skilled staff to regulate social media platforms because it would be hard to compete with the likes of Facebook for technical staff. “Goodness knows what they pay their algorithm authors – if that’s the right word – and they’re very, very smart people.”
If, as expected, the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, confirms Grade’s appointment, he will give up the Tory whip and switch to sitting as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords.
At one point Grade was asked whether it was acceptable for the television channel Talking Pictures to air repeats of The Black and White Minstrel Show. The former BBC light entertainment hit – which ended in 1978 – is now decried for its use of blackface and other racist tropes.
“I actually cancelled The Black and White Minstrel Show,” claimed Grade, who was working at the ITV franchise London Weekend Television when the BBC took the show off air.
