The new Director-General, Matt Brittin, stated that he recently watched a 50-minute episode of the science fiction series Doctor Who, and found it "not bad at all".

According to Variety, Brittin stated at a Royal Television Society meeting that AI "will not replace humans, and we will discuss this later," and added that "everyone is a creator. Not all creativity is bad." A few days ago, Brittin also told an interviewer that as long as there are "safeguards in place," he would consider allowing BBC programs to be produced and presented by AI.

This news appears as this long-running science fiction series enters the bidding phase once again. The series first aired in 1963 and went on hiatus after concluding a deal with Disney worth $220 million.

Brittin previously worked at Google for 18 years before taking on the highest position at this British national broadcasting company. He did not reveal more details about this episode, including whether it was generated by BBC themselves or provided by an external party. BBC refused to comment on the matter.

BBC Previous attempts to combine Doctor Who with AI ended in strong backlash from the audience. In 2024, BBC announced the use of generative AI to produce marketing materials for its flagship programs, with Doctor Who being the first project to utilize this approach. However, just a few weeks later, BBC abandoned this plan, stating that it had "received complaints regarding the use of generative AI to promote the show," and described the previous attempts as a "small-scale experiment."

This incident occurred a few months ago, when BBC had just proposed its “core principles” for using the generative technology AI, calling this technology a “major opportunity”. At the same time, they committed to adhering to public interest guidelines, giving priority to talent and “human creativity”, and maintaining transparency.

Thereafter, BBC launched a series of "pilot projects" that utilized generative AI, including the generation of synthetic voices for weather forecasts using AI, as well as image enhancement.