to what age children should access social media. that's coming up on the media show. now, it's the challenge all media organisations are grappling with — how to attract the next generation. channel 4 is one of the uk's biggest broadcasters, and it's released new research on gen z and made suggestions for how reliable, truthful information to geordie greig from the independent, but we started with the ceo of channel 4, alex mahon. we've always had a role as a broadcaster to focus on younger people, not kids, but adolescents or young adults, for about five years, which actually is not a long time. but even in five years,

particularly exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic, which was a big interruption in their lives, a change in economic circumstances for them versus our generation. so really it was about what does it feel like for them in britain today? do we know enough about how it feels and what are the impacts that some of their ways of consuming media are having on their lives? some of its findings include 58% of gen z respondents say they considered social media posts from friends to be as, and sometimes more trusted than established journalism. we saw that much more, they were much more likely to trust influencers than older generations, maybe. said they thought the uk would be better off if a strong leader was in charge, who does not have to bother with parliament and elections. and, alex, that last one did raise eyebrows and headlines. but i suppose more widely,

should we be surprised by some of these findings? i suppose every generation faces technological disruptions. and you said yourself young people have never been particularly high consumers of serious news. i think we should be surprised and concerned about the impacts it's having. so if we just think the average british person is watching five hours of video a day~ — but for gen 2 in the uk, about 64% of that consumption is on a tiktok or a meta platform or youtube. so it's a really different skew they're hyperconnected, they are getting hundreds of alerts a day. they're really used to being able to search out and seek all available information. however, there aren't simple ways— to differentiate fact from fiction _ and one of the impacts of that

the definition of what truth is is quite hard for them to grapple with it's having impacts on democracy, democratic disengagement. let's just go for a dictator. i think that's probably understandable, given what they've seen from the last ten years of different governments. you know, they haven't seen great success of democracy. that's understandable. we have to think about the impact of that. so what we're seeing is over 40% of young men saying, "i think feminism has gone far enough. "i think it's impacting me "even if there is not evidence of that." and that's where we see people like tate — and jordan peterson kind of playing to that emotion. now, that's understandable if you haven't seen an increase

particularly social content viewed alone — it does have an impact because you tend to across the board. geordie greig from the independent. i think it's a fascinating report— and it's provocative and it's made us all think. - but it's also a challenge - and it's also an opportunity. i mean, at the independent, we had 1 billion video views i on our websites last year. we have 25 million users. 45% of them are of the gen 2 and millennials. _ that cast of the country, that young, unharnessed we've all got to absolutely lean into and think, - "what do they want?" yes, there is a change in habits _ we've talked about the hours, but there's also _ which were gender, sexuality, politics, views, news, -

reassurance, mental health? all these things. _ we have found - since the independent, we became a wider media company and we bought buzzfeed and we bought huffpost, - with what the youth of- today are thinking and want under the umbrella of a brand which is independent, - we found to our advantage. and we've seen growth, i we've seen engagement, and we've seen a real opportunity— for being successful journalistically, - and we'll get further into the strategy but on your point that this generation is motivated by trust and by authenticity and by truth, also found that people's relationship with what they consider to be true is evolving.

it's not the same necessarily as what older generations may consider how they decide what is true or not true. so i think the big difference is, and i completely agree with geordie _ that there are very many smart, information—hungry that's why we see people reading conspiracy theories more than they ever have before _ an information—saturated environment, young people have what we would call a flattening of trust in sources. so whereas older people would rank the bbc or a newspaper differently to how they might rank an advertiser post or what a — friend's posted on social, younger people trust those things more alike of what a truly trusted source is. so that's the research. maybe could be a response to it. and, geordie and david,

we would like to hear your perspectives on alex's ideas. public service media is given advantage by the prominence it gets on electronic programming guides and so on, you're looking for a digital equivalent. just help us understand what that would mean in practice. so, first of all, i think britain is in a really good place. i know that's a rare thing to say, but we have, like, strong regulation here. we have ofcom, we have a government who's done a lot with things like the online harms bill. so we're in a different situation to other countries. and we have very strong public service media here and newspapers. so that's important to bear in mind when you think of these things. which was the other big technical intervention, we put lots of controls on it. we made them put news on at a certain time. we made sure that there was a healthy diet. so i'm saying, well, why don't you consider, trusted news,

giving it some algorithmic prominence so it's easy for people to find. but let's make it really easy for them to find and make sure it's in the feed. david rhodes, you are american. you've had your career primarily in the american media market. does the idea of the kind of intervention that alex advocates, algorithmic prominence, helping certain types of content get higher prominence than others, that are in the work that...? can i be blunt? we've got to keep government out ofjournalism. _ you can be blunt, but i'd also like to hear the end of david's question. well, look, i think there's two reasons now. one, it is absolutely the case

and it's part of our sky news 2030 plan, _ that never have people watched more video. _ just never has a lower percentage _ of that video viewing been to linear television. - that we need to address which as news organisations, we iare supposed to be sceptical of| and asking them to sort of resolve this issue for us i creates some unintended consequences. _ and i think there's also - a confirmation—bias problem of if we try to attach some seal of approval— to the things that we do. who is deserving of the prominence that you're advocating for? i think the question for me is what is professionally produced by people who have a street address that you can look up, what's the expansion of that i would consider that newspapers

they are regulated by ofcom. and if you think as simplistically as before twitter was what it is now, your kids recognised that, it was simple. fineable, regulatable organisation and then ensure that that's in the feed. then people can read it or not, it's totally up to them. but give the public an easy way to ask the questions here, and one of the most compelling things in your survey, and you just mentioned it, or influencer opinion as it does what we might call elite opinion or establishment opinion — if that's the trust environment, if that's how they feel about trust, is the government entering in

in the way that we've just discussed and saying, "right, these ones over here, we don't want you, isn't that going to have a consequence of them who's a valid source or not. we don't want to spend our time having news forced upon us by the government. but you do want to think about how regulation works with it. and clearly, i'm not suggesting that you could buy a blue tick, but i do think we have to recognise that for the audience, particularly for the young audience, trust in institutions is collapsing. from the edelman trust barometer, so one has to also take into account anymore and give them the tools for qualityjournalism and fact—checked things so they can make up their own minds about what they choose to believe. geordie greig, would you like some sort of stamp

which says the independent qualifies? with its own independence, thank you very much. and i think, you know, we have shown that trusted, qualityjournalism can grow numbers in traffic, newsguard gives us the top rating — for an independent body looking at journalism. the bbc gets quite a nice tick at 92% as well. we stand by our reputation and i think we have shown that qualityjournalism can grow. but isn't one of the problems, that when people consume content on platforms, they will often primarily associate the content with the platform rather than they will the content creators. and go, "i saw a great video on tiktok." not "i saw a great video from sky." it's a fragmented, complicated landscape. you know, when they see something with from sky, who are a big competitor of ours. _

or from the independent, that in itself, of choice, of deliberation and trying to do a projection of what the news is about. and i think there are successes around with this, which come from people hungry for news — and clinging to brands which they trust. we also want to talk about what sky news has got planned, with sky news. you've got this big, new strategy that's been widely reported. and for people who haven't seen any of the reporting, ok, so we talked about our... we're calling it sky news 2030. and what it is, is to be a premium video—first newsroom and there's aspects to all of those — i mean, premium isn't going to sound like _ an unusual finding for anybody in the business. and i know that listeners to the media show are not confined

just to people in the media business. is premium just another word for content you're going to have to pay for? well, i think it's content that you can't find anywhere else now, content that you can't find anywhere else you probably are more inclined to pay for— than if you could find it anywhere else. but a lot of the dynamics that we're talking about in the information marketplace today mean, and ai especially means, here's, like, the temperatures that are expected, like, that kind of thing, we need to, as an industry, ithink. _ and certainly as sky news, we need to turn out of that as fast as we can, and we need to turn into more of what we do that you can't find anywhere else. and, look, some weeks that's our international report. it's different from week to week.

of content that people listening now might get from sky news, at the moment they'll primarily look at text articles are they paying for all of sky news, or are you saying you're offering bits that they have to pay for like mail online does, like the sun's just announced it's doing? there will always be a television aspect to what we do, and there will always be a free aspect to what we do. it is an important part of our offering. it's an important part of our role in the larger company. there will be paid—for experiences and there'll be experiences that open up new ways of monetisation for us and geordie from the independent, this would be sky entering a paid content arena in some form,

we remain supremely confident the independent will always be at the forefront, which is why we've just reached this landmark. for the first time, and we are one of the few media companies we've changed just our revenue base as well. via our indybest site this year. called cancelled, which led to the foreign secretary qualityjournalism can vibrate an argument, have impact, bring readers in, hold them _ that it's qualityjournalism which we're about,

we can get lost in the weeds of how we try to make money. you've just got to do it. we have to be earning money, making money, thinking about money as well as being a progressive newspaper i think the truth is people want free, right? - so i would say, yes, absolutely, - there's a place for subscription, - all these subscriptions, there are too many, we all do it. i we cancel this, cancel that, go in to watch one series, l it's a mixed economy. people want free for lots of things— that there is always more consumer money-

and that's why you see netflix and disney and others - creating an ad service as well. we're going to hear from bill gates, the co—founder of microsoft. which looks at the early part of his life and, unfortunately, not me, but, katie, you've been interviewing him? well, i have, and reading the book, you really get a sense of the wonder and excitement he felt as a kid about technology. and nowadays, of course, people have real concerns about tech. so that was one of the things when i went to seattle, i asked him, where did it all go wrong? can be used in excess. i mean, you know, there are people who think their kids uh, and... and they should get out. same thing with video games, you know. and get a kid to do a diverse set of things, you know, then that can be a problem.

even more than video gaming, and can make you worry about, you know, so it's really when social networking comes along you have to be very careful how it gets used. i can, you know, stay in touch with relatives that are far away. i can find information. but also even what adults do. for example, could have access to social media? i think this idea of holding kids back until, say, age 16, which, you know, apparently australia is going to try to do that, i think it'll be fascinating to see if that's beneficial.

and you say the message was technology, was progress, and in the right hands it would bring peace. now, for all your success at microsoft and obviously sometimes government said thought about the world in terms of the way social media does. are you worried about the concentration of power you know, i don't know how much power they have, but our politics, there's plenty to be concerned about at a time where, as ai is becoming more powerful, think about how do we contain it? how does it affect the job market? how do we change our taxation policies? so i worry about politics.

to talk to politicians about technology. in fact, that piece of it i'm big on. so when you think now about what's happening, obviously are courting donald trump, if you like, the new president, i think donald trump... ..should learn about what's going on in technology. you know, i reached out and spent time with donald trump because he'll be making decisions about global health and how we help poor countries, with him how i thought about that. yeah, i had dinner with him december 27th. you know, and a long discussion.

so i agree, you know, talking to donald trump, if you, you know, want the us government to be your partner you're probably wise to take that opportunity. so you're not cynical about their motives? you can be cynical. you know, when i started microsoft, i had this crazy view that we didn't need that isn't involved in politics at all." completely ignore what's going on in politics. mark zuckerberg has said that in the us, they don't need fact checkers any longer. about a vaccine programme that you fund,

what do you think mark zuckerberg should do about it? or do you think free speech trumps it? well, i'm certainly sad that in the covid pandemic there were deaths that wouldn't have occurred if people had sought out vaccines. bears some responsibility for those deaths. and they both... you can cite examples where, 0k, it's great that free speech where that was awful. and even today people may not realise that.

and so, i don't personally know how you draw that line, as well as we should. so you're not impressed necessarily with how mark zuckerberg has? that are facing this problem. i wish i could tell you, you know, country x, you know, clearly has preserved free speech, xenophobic, you know, things. thatithe challenge of those as the ai capabilities get even better. so there's you, katie, speaking with bill gates. that's his autobiography, but it only covers some

of his life. notjust one, but two more. this is going to be a three—volume autobiography, and another one, so don't wor . ~ i don't know, will i be going back to interview him? that will be coming up on the media show if that happens in time to come. but for now, thank you very much forjoining us. bye-bye. bye. search bbc the media show hello there. we've got a wintry mix of weather this evening and overnight. settling snow will be mainly confined to the hills, reverting back to rain across southern areas as we pick up some less cold air. bringing the windy weather.

but you'll notice it also bring some lighter colours across the country for this weekend, so a little less cold before more cold weather returns around this area of high pressure for next week on an easterly wind. of england and wales. mainly rain, central and southern certainly the south pennines across the peak district. some of this snow getting in a little bit further north but the rest of scotland and northern ireland will see clear skies, a sharp frost in places. so for saturday, it's a rather grey picture. across england and wales, a bit of wintriness on the pennines, maybe some wintry showers for eastern scotland. the best of the sunshine, again, across this northwest corner, and perhaps some brightness developing across the south—east one or two rain showers here. and the winds lighter

across the board on saturday to what we've had today. temperatures range from around six to eight or nine degrees. so that's how saturday is looking. starts to thin and break, allowing more clear spells to develop. will be lighter. so for sunday, high pressure starts to build back in. sunday, i think, looking like being the better day of the weekend, perhaps drier and a bit brighter. but some areas could stay cloudy all day. and temperatures 6—9 degrees — that's a little above the seasonal norm. but into next week, temperatures a lot of dry weather because of high pressure,

and some hill snow across central, northern and eastern areas.

live from washington, this is bbc news a usjudge orders a limited pause on certain steps by the trump administration to dismantle the world's largest aid organization. dozens of countries, including some of america's court.

security services access to users' encrypted data. a us federaljudge has blocked some of president donald trump's plans to dismantle the us agency for international development in what the judge described as a "very limited" it comes after two unions sued the trump administration, largest aid organization would be put on leave. reports suggested that usaid�*s staff could be slashed from a force of about 10,000 worldwide tojust a few hundred. this was the scene today at the organization's

the move is part of president trump's efforts to reshape