Anne Morrison, Chair of BAFTA - Speech, House of Fraser British Academy Television Awards in 2015

Good evening and a very warm welcome to the House of Fraser British Academy Television Awards.

We’re here to celebrate the best of television of 2014. It’s TV’s biggest night of the year. And I’m sure everyone who comes up on stage will be thinking the same thing – What will Steph and Dom say about me on Gogglebox?

Tonight is about programmes as a whole, as well as on screen performances and I think one of the toughest categories this time round must be Leading Actress. It’s an indication of what a year it’s been for strong female roles. Georgina Campbell, Keeley Hawes, Sarah Lancashire and Sheridan Smith. I can’t think of anyone on that list who doesn’t deserve to win. Young people at the beginning of their careers can look up to our nominees, across the board, and be inspired by their astonishing achievements.

But we have to recognise that it’s still easier for SOME people to get on in television than others and there are areas where women, for example, are not well represented. The number of female directors and writers remains pretty low, which means their voices aren’t always being heard on screen. But transparency brings progress and I believe the channels are now addressing the problem. We can see the strength of the female characters and storylines in so many of tonight’s nominated programmes. I think back to Helen Mirren, before her BAFTA fellowship, when she won so many BAFTA awards for her work in Prime Suspect. It seems that we’re only starting to build on that now, following the success of Scandi dramas such as Borgen and The Killing, with women in strong, pivotal roles. We’re heading in the right direction. Congratulations to each and every one of you making this happen.

A couple of weeks ago we partnered on an event to connect nearly 200 inspiring women with 850 schoolgirls. We encouraged them to aim high and think of a career in the arts. That’s just one example of how BAFTA works with new talent from all backgrounds to widen access to our industry. We also run scholarships, mentoring schemes, masterclasses, all-day craft sessions, schemes for below the line crew members and new talent showcases like Breakthrough Brits. We do it all because we have a mission to give talented people every opportunity to succeed, regardless of their gender, social background, ethnicity or disability.

A fortnight ago today we honoured a wonderful range of behind-the-scenes talent at the BAFTA Television Craft Awards, with the special award presented to vision mixer extraordinaire, Hilary Briegel. Up to that point Hilary had been an unsung hero for many of us. Now I think we can safely say that she is ‘sung”. And tonight we’re thrilled to honour one of the leading journalists of our time with the Fellowship. They say that the Eskimos have 40 different newsreaders called Jon Snow but as far as I’m concerned, the man is a one-off!

Thanks to our sponsors and partners, who make all that we do at BAFTA possible, particularly our title sponsors, House of Fraser and our audience award sponsors, Radio Times. Thank you to Whizz Kid Entertainment, Freuds and the BBC. My thanks also to the brilliant BAFTA team – Amanda Berry, Kevin Price, Emma Baehr, Kelly Smith, Clare Brown - and the Television Committee, led by Chair Andrew Newman and Deputy Chair Jane Lush.

Please turn your phones to silent but if you want to tweet, feel free, using the hashtag BAFTA TV. And from tomorrow morning, you can head over to bafta.org or YouTube to catch the winners’ interviews from backstage and watch our nominees talking about their craft.

Oh, and by the way, QI has confirmed that the eskimos do NOT in fact have 40 words for snow and they aren’t really called eskimos anyway!

Have a fabulous evening.