RSC media profile remains high

The RSC's media profile remains high, making headlines around the world about GCSE education and the wider scientific, engineering, business and political issues relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the repositioning of BP.

An article in the Times reported on how GCSEs were kept easy to appease middle class parents, after an interview with RSC chief executive Dr Richard Pike.

Dr Pike said the exam boards kept GCSEs "meaninglessly easy" as parents expect their children to achieve a string of A-grades. Examples of questions were printed with the story to demonstrate the point.

The story was highlighted on the Today programme's newspaper review, attracted a letter of support published the next day, was featured in the Times's "The week" section on Friday, and was referred to at the top of a half-page column in the Sunday Times.

Throughout the past few weeks Dr Pike has been interviewed by international media about the activities in the Gulf of Mexico and the wider implications for its senior management.

On the announcement at 7am sharp on Tuesday 27 July of BP chief executive Tony Hayward's resignation, the RSC made the first external global comment on the BBC World Service just minutes later, with Dr Pike talking to millions of listeners from a rail station platform on his mobile phone.

More interviews with the BBC reached many millions on several channels and platforms, with the World Service, World Television, News 24, Breakfast, Television News and Newsnight all running interviews with Dr Pike.

He also appeared on Sky News, ITN News, German public service broadcaster ARD, and the lead story on Al Jazeera's prime-time Middle East live news programme, and a quote appeared in the Japanese broadsheet Asahi Shimbun, which with a daily circulation of 11 million is one of the biggest newspapers in the world.

News organisations were lining up to interview Dr Pike on the issues of perception and PR, and their effect on the BP shareholders.