Eric Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman, MacTaggart Lecture (LIVESTREAM)

Eric Schmidt, Google executive chairman will deliver the MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival at 6:45pm Friday 25th August 2011. A Livestream will be available here on The Huffington Post, via YouTube.

Schmidt is the first speaker from outside the traditional broadcasting industry to deliver the highly anticipated speech, and is expected to discuss how important the TV industry is to Google. Google, he will most likely posit, needs quality, substantial content in order to exist as a search business.

Google recently announced the launch of Google TV, which involves partnerships with NBC Universal, HBO, and Turner Broadcasting. It is described by Google as a platform that combines your current TV programming and the open web into a single, seamless entertainment experience," offering you viewing options across accessing "the entire Internet".

The MacTaggart lecture is keenly anticipated thanks to previous speakers. In 2009, James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation in Europe and Asia and non-executive chairman of BSkyB, delivered a rallying cry to cut back the expansion of the BBC. In 2010 Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, hit back at Murdoch demanding 'It's time that Sky pulled its weight by investing much, much more in British talent and British content'.

Schmidt stepped down as chief executive of Google in January after 10 years at the helm.