Matt Brittin’s message was pretty clear on his first day as director general of the BBC. It was echoed in a schedule that included an introductory LinkedIn video as well as meetings with the newsroom, podcast, radio, current affairs and research and development teams. It was there in his first all-staff email, which used the word “velocity” twice and invoked the second world war to call for a “sense of urgency”.

Alongside Brittin’s affection for the BBC and public service broadcasting, his message can best be summed up as “move fast but break nothing”.

As the former head of Google in Europe, Brittin is likely to have heard the phrase used by Silicon Valley companies keen to distance themselves from the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s original business mantra – “move fast and break things” – once it was pointed out that the stuff getting broken included democracy and society. The BBC, its journalism and its universality, has been hit by a world of on-demand entertainment, fake news and internet slop.

The big question is this: how does Brittin plan to turn round the 103-year-old BBC supertanker quickly enough without hitting all the icebergs in his way? Huge hazards include a charter up for renewal in 2027, a demoralised, diminished workforce and a rival British media quick to throw the odd grenade in the culture war.

No wonder the former Olympic rower........

© The Guardian