The culture secretary Sajid Javid has described US takeover of UK production companies as "no bad thing" and a "massive vote of confidence" for the creative economy. The producers behind Downton Abbey, Masterchef and The Voice have all been gobbled up by stateside firms though Javid described the trend as "a great British success story."

Downton AbbeyThe producer behind Downton Abbey was snaffled up

The culture secretary also used his first major speech on broadcasting to say the BBC "can and must" make more efficiency savings as well as taking issue with Channel 4's chief executive David Abraham who used his recent MacTaggart Lecture to warn against the takeover of the British TV industry by US media and tech firms.

"David Abraham raised concerns about American companies investing in British production houses. But is that a bad thing?" he told the Royal Television Society London conference.

"For decades, the Americans dominated the international landscape. Today, the likes of Liberty, Fox and Discovery are coming to Britain to see how it's done.

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"To me that is a massive vote of confidence in the work you do - work that has had an incredible impact on the UK economy. Last year the UK television industry generated more than £12bn of revenues. Indies and superindies are worth £3bn [and] British multichannel broadcasters turn over more than £5bn a year."

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On the BBC, Javid used an example of a trip to Jersey to meet the arrival of the Queen's Baton as part of the fun-up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

"The BBC had 10 staff there, three of them reporters," he said. "Is that really justifiable?"

Javid is responsible for bringing forward a review of the license fee, which could lead to the decriminalisation of non-payment.

"The BBC gets £3.7bn [in annual funding]. When you have an organisation that size, it's not impossible to find savings if you try really, really hard. My view is that it can continue to work hard and more savings can be made," he said.