Janice Hadlow, Controller of BBC Four, has been named as Oxford University’s News International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media (2006-20007), in succession to the satirist Armando Iannucci. The visiting chair affords figures in the broadcast media world an opportunity to explore and explain their understandings of the impact of the broadcast media on society. Hadlow’s four lectures after Christmas promise to be thought-provoking, especially her first (on Tuesday 21 January 2007): ‘The Importance of Being Serious – Why Serious Television Still Matters In The Digital Age’. Let’s hope that Oxford or the BBC might think about doing interesting with the lectures, like broadcasting them online?