Jonathan Dimbleby Quotes

You have to be damn certain you’re putting something better in its place.

While I have corrected agreed factual errors, I have not been inhibited from writing what I felt to be the truth about The Prince of Wales.

The moment seemed right to me for a full and, if possible, authoritative portrait of the life and character of the Prince of Wales.

The long, forensic interview really matters.

The challenge is the culture. You have to have a vision for the BBC-it can’t merely be that it’s big and has a place in the market.

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.

The BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me.

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won’t be using long words.

Over the last two years, I have been able to comb through The Prince’s archives. I have been free to read his journals, diaries and many thousands of the letters.

Not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last week’s winner of Have I Got News For You-but I suppose you might be wrong.

It’s absolutely fine to think of new ways of doing things, and I’m not just asking for the traditional reporter to look into our living rooms night after night.

I’m not certain that the BBC can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly.

I was disappointed not to be able to interview Mr. Clinton. I met him two years ago. I was looking forward to talking with him about issues from Africa to terrorism.

I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don’t.

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.

I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.

I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.

I deplore the loss of arts on BBC One and Two.