Form book 15

Some odds and ends...

Spooky. The Evening Standard tips FT Editor Lionel Barber for BBC DG: Lionel Barber turns up on Newsnight, in the boss chair on Paxo's right, for a Budget discussion.

There's continued puzzlement amongst long-serving BBC watchers about lack of press mentions or betting odds for Peter Bazalgette - who usually figures in the odds for top media jobs much earlier than this.

The MD of (Australian) ABC, Mark Scott, seems to have ruled himself out of the race, according to The Australian: "My contract has 4 1/2 years to run," he said. "I fully expect the next director-general to be British." Is it a denial of interest, or a non-denial ?  Could he, like Mark Thompson at C4 in 2004, have a "Sonia Gandhi" moment ?   Mr Scott is priced between 14/1 and 20/1 with the bookies.

With friends like these: media grandees Roy Greenslade and Ray Snoddy are tipping Helen Boaden. Stephen Glover, in the Mail gives her this charmless and probably unwelcome endorsement: "I'm told Ms Boaden may lean fractionally more to the Right than the others [internal candidates], but none of them could be fairly described as conservative with a big or small ‘c’, and it is unimaginable that anyone of such a persuasion could become director-general of the BBC".