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National treasure Stephen Fry makes a typically passionate and considered case for the BBC in a lecture that forms part of the BBC’s response to the Ofcom review of public service broadcasting.

You know when you visit another country and you see that it spends more money on flowers for its roundabouts than we do, and you think … coo, why don’t we do that? How pretty. How pleasing. What a difference it makes. To spend money for the public good in a way that enriches, gives pleasure, improves the quality of life, that is something. That is a real achievement. It’s only flowers in a roundabout, but how wonderful. Well, we have the equivalent of flowers in the roundabout times a million: the BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to build it up again.

Fry makes a fine argument as you’d expect. Yet, in a way all he need to is point to himself. He represents the very best of what the BBC, and only the BBC can be: compelling, entertaining, informative and, you know, special.

(Link via Mark Boulton on twitter/delicious.)

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