Processing the processor

A rather tetchy performance from BBC Vision Chief Creative Officer Pat Younge on Radio 4's The Media Show revealed little about which barking ideas will be adopted in the BBC's Delivering Quality First process. Steve Hewlett eventually managed to push him into saying that leaving daytime origination to BBC1 might be a runner "but the issue might be damage to reach".   Pat pointed out that the BBC reaches 97% of the UK population with product of some form or another every week - and DQF proposals would fall by the wayside if it looked like that fantastic hit-rate would fall as a result. That really hamstrings nearly everything.

The exchange ended ungraciously with Pat refusing to take a question about Midsomer Murders, from the perspective of, probably, the leading black executive in UK broadcasting. "You've taken me over the bushes about the BBC - it's an ITV story".