Peter Bazalgette: The digital age gives our culture a wider audience

Last year our National Theatre screened its superb live stage productions in 360 UK cinemas and 350 other venues around the world, with NT Live reaching an additional two million people. The Tate connected with two million people via social media and had the most popular website of any gallery or museum in Britain. The British Museum recently pioneered a hugely popular live online presentation of its Pompeii exhibition. And this season, the Royal Opera House expects to reach more people through the big screen than through live attendance.

We are only in the second decade of what is going to be the digital millennium and something very exciting is happening. We’re discovering how to bring more art to more people in more places than we would have even dared imagine a few years ago. This is just the beginning.

These pioneering forms of distribution cannot replace the buzz of live theatre or the excitement of physically connecting with paintings and exhibits. But they are a powerful complement to it and London’s cultural organisations are leading the way. In his current Reith lectures, Grayson Perry worries that despite the extraordinary possibilities of new technology, “art will sort of dissipate on the web”. In fact, unique “live” experiences are more treasured in the digital era than before because in the electronic world so much is replicable.

But for those who do not live in London, or indeed in Britain, these new forms of distribution are very exciting. I loved the National’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as a piece of live theatre. But when I took myself to my local cinema and paid £13 to see it on screen with 50 others there was a further curious incident: we were all entranced and several were in tears. And with opera, the HD sound and sharp close-ups actually give you something you can’t get live.

We make public investments in the arts because of the intrinsic value of culture, because of the way the arts nurture our society, because they’re intimately involved in our liberal education and also because they stimulate our tourist economy and champion our national values abroad. Digital distribution and interaction represents a dynamically greater delivery of public value for our investment.

London is now demonstrably the world’s capital of culture (just compare the listings on offer for an average evening in Paris, Berlin, Sydney or even New York and you’ll see what I mean). But this wonderful, rich, creative melting pot should be available to all of us, wherever we live in the UK. Digital technology is a hugely effective approach, alongside touring and other collaborations that will enable London’s leading cultural organisations to play a greater role nationally, which they aspire to.

Arts Council England is working to help drive more benefits from this connected world. It will include a re-launch of the prototype online arts platform, jointly piloted with the BBC last year, The Space. There will also be other fruitful digital partnerships with both public and private organisations. Despite funding dilemmas, if we get this right we’ll be able to pass on to our children and their children what will resemble a Digital Arts Network of extraordinary value.

Sir Peter Bazalgette is chair of Arts Council England.