The BBC has heart where Netflix has only “the insatiable greed for data-gathering", the corporation’s head of television has said.

Charlotte Moore said the BBC stands out from Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services - which rely on algorithms over human intuition - as it cares about its audiences.

In the BBC's most damning critique yet of US media giants, Moore said: "So much of what’s driving the rapid change in our industry is about technology, not creativity. The television landscape is increasingly defined by what will deliver the biggest profits for companies, not the best programmes for audiences.

"I worry that the insatiable greed for data-gathering is actually serving the wrong master - that entire businesses are focused on what they can take from audiences, instead of what they can give back. The BBC is different."

Netflix commissions programmes based on data that shows what its audiences enjoy watching, and thus what is likely to be a hit. Cindy Holland, the company's head of original content, said in 2014: "We see everything our subscribers are watching. We can identify subscriber populations that gravitate around genre areas, such as horror, thriller and supernatural. That allows us to project a threshold audience size to see if it makes for a viable project for us."