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James Caan: I'm James Caan. You may know me as one of the Dragons. But tonight I’ve left the Den to discover for myself how we can tackle the biggest problem of this recession.

I built my career in recruitment. That means I understand the job market. If you're concerned about your job, stick with us because I have some good advice that’s going to keep you out of here and in employment.

James Caan: Firstly, I think your CV sucks.

Jobseeker: Right.

James Caan: Okay, that's a technical phrase.

James Caan: For the people affected by redundancy it’s traumatic.

Interviewee: You're a nobody, you sign on the dole you don’t mean anything to anybody.

James Caan: For the companies involved it’s often a matter of survival.

Interviewee: These companies aren’t charities. They are there solely to make profits for their shareholders.

James Caan: I'm going to meet people who work in five different sectors of the economy to find out how the downturn has affected them. In retail I want to know why stores like Woolworths failed, shedding thousands of jobs.

Interviewee: Woolworths has been stuffed for years, and then, suddenly, the big financial crisis has just made it have no chance.

James Caan: I'll be finding out how the collapse of the banks has demolished the construction industry.

Architect: We were a practice of thirty, and we made a third redundant, that hurts.

James Caan: And we've put together a team of top experts to debate the issues surrounding unemployment.

Expert: The people who have taken the brunt of this recession so far are people who had no part in making it.

James Caan: On tonight’s programme I want to find out what can be done about the biggest unemployment problem in decades.

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Max Flint: Tonight, on The Money Programme, the volatile price of fuel has caused havoc in the world economy. And are financial speculators the people that we should blame?

Last July oil prices peaked at $147 a barrel, crippling businesses around the world.

Interviewee: Even if there had been no credit crunch the oil price spike all by itself would have forced us into recession because that’s what oil price spikes do.

Max Flint: And oil and commodity speculators are being blamed.

Interviewee: The most steep climb we've ever seen has only one explanation, and that's speculators coming in, money coming into the market.

Max Flint: We’re all paying the price for the oil spike and MPs want answers.

MP: The world is now in recession mainly because of this huge rise in energy prices. The damage is long term. Companies have gone out of business; people have been made redundant.

Max Flint: By the end of the year oil prices had tumbled by around $100, but for many businesses it was too late.

Interviewee: Basing your business on a commodity with a price that unstable is, seriously ...

Max Flint: And it’s not just oil; the speculators are blamed for driving up food prices.

Interviewee: We have seen riots, we have seen people dying. We have seen people starving. That is not acceptable.

Max Flint: But the speculators reckon they’re the innocent victims of a witch-hunt.

"Speculator": Rob Spear blamed the speculators, Lenin blamed the speculators, our current leaders are also blaming the so-called speculators.

Max Flint: I've been on a journey across the world to investigate both sides of the argument.

So as the recession starts to bite, we ask "are speculators the real culprits?"

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Producer: Four, three, two, one zero.

Presenter: Television. Britain invented it, and we’re world leaders in this multibillion pound creative industry.

Bruno Tonioli: Look at America, American Idol – British; Dancing with the Stars – British; Hell’s Kitchen - British. You should be proud of yourselves!

Presenter: But the television business is being turned on its head by a transformation in the way we watch.

Media expert: We’re still funding British television as if it was fifty years ago. The viewers have moved on. The funding’s got to move on.

Presenter: I discovered how this home-grown quiz show became the hottest property on TV.

Chris Tarrant, how’s the contestant chair feeling?

Chris Tarrant: I've never ever sat this side in my life.

Presenter: Tonight we’re on the road with the British TV executives behind our international hit shows.

Interviewee: Over the last two and a half weeks I've been to Oslo, Warsaw, Milan, Amsterdam, and I'm now on my way to Skopje.

Presenter: We talk to fans of British television from around the world.

Chinese media buyer: We like Jeremy Clarkson here. He’s unique.

Presenter: And to leading industry figures trying to work out what a digital future really means.

Media executive: The good news is that programme ideas are being swapped at a speed of light between channels, between countries, between continents. The bad news is that none of us are sure what the actual funding model of television’s going to be in the next ten, twenty years.

John McVay: The changes we’re about to see as we move from analog to digital are as profound as the changes in television forty years ago when we moved from black and white to colour.

Presneter: Ad revenues are falling and internet use is soaring. Tonight I’ll find out what it'll take to keep Britain’s world-class TV industry alive.

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