Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, has warned British broadcasters to adapt their output to the new media world or face extinction.

He told delegates at the Royal Television Society (RTS) convention in Cambridge that if they were not “innovating and coming up with new ideas,” they were “toast”. “There are huge rewards for those who innovate, and death to those who do not,” he said.

Chernin suggested that there was a “golden opportunity” for media companies to make money from the new consumer-led world despite having to fight harder for viewers’ attention. According to Chernin, traditional media companies had to take notice of technological developments and adapt their business model accordingly. “The knee-jerk reaction is to take pot-shots at what you don’t understand. To dismiss user-generated content as crap and blogs as unauthoritative is not only unproductive but a waste of time,” Chernin claimed.

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