Oborne: 'BBC and C4 need major documentaries'

The Daily Telegraph's political commentator Peter Oborne has said that the BBC and Channel 4 must continue to make major documentaries.

Oborne, one of the reporters on Channel 4's Unreported World documentary strand, was speaking at a Frontline Club event about the programme in London last night.

He said: "Both the BBC and Channel 4 need to maintain a really serious documentary presence. In the case of BBC, if they are to be taken seriously as an impartial national free to air broadcaster they have to do it. For Channel 4 it is very much part of what they do.

"It is very easy to bow to commercial pressures I think it is very, very important that these major channels justify the fact that they are out there in the public domain by producing major documentaries and continuing to do so."

Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who now presents each Unreported World programme and updates them at the end, said: "the golden age of television is now."

He said that although some documentary strands have come and gone, the tv industry was bigger than ever and the costs of making documentaries had fallen considerably.

Asked by a member of the audience how to get into working on documentaries, Guru-Murthy replied: "Make them". He said: "It's so easy to buy a cheap camera, put a documentary on YouTube and get an audience."

Unreported World website.