Eric Schmidt's MacTaggart lecture to be streamed live on YouTube

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt's MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday will be streamed live and exclusively on YouTube.

Schmidt will be the first person from outside the broadcasting industry to deliver the prestigious speech in the festival's history.

The speech will be broadcast live from 6.45pm on Friday on the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival YouTube page.

Schmidt, who stepped down as chief executive of the internet giant in January, is expected to tell delegates that Google needs the content industry in order to thrive.

The keenly anticipated speech follows last year's lecture by Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, and 2009's punchy address by James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation in Europe and Asia and non-executive chairman of BSkyB.

Writing in the Guardian on Thursday, Thompson described Murdoch's infamous speech having, in retrospect, an "unexpected and almost tragic irony".

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