Nothing but blue skies

Steve Hewlett, in the Media Guardian, has clearly been re-enchanted by Lord Birt. Whether it happened face-to-face, in his recent interview about the BBC DG succession for Radio 4's Media Show, or it was triggered by Matthew McFadyen's interpretation of the "croak-voiced Dalek" for the film of "Frost/Nixon" re-shown last night on BBC4, is not clear.

In Steve's regular Monday column, he argues that the current management isn't really up to a radical examination of Auntie's bloated body, and only a strategist of Birt's quality can do the liposuction required - which may well be to deliver John's ultimate dream of a BBC made up solely of pointy-headed commissioners, leaving all production, except news, to indies.

There are clearly some motes in Steve's eyes. He was editor of Panorama when John was issuing inky-blue post-its from his limed-oak eyrie at Broadcasting House. Birt thought Panorama largely passed the tests of the Birt-Jay thesis, and piled money in.

Nonetheless, the candidates will be interested in Steve's analysis, and even now will be trying to work out who it favours.

Steve cites two reports by John Myers as examples of eye-openers to the profligacy of today's BBC. The first report, on Radio1 and 2, was commissioned by Tim Davie, Director of Audio and Music - so he gets Hewlett creds for bringing in the outside view. However the Myers findings of duplication and generous staffing at Western House and Yalding should have been no surprise to a sharp executive seeking the top job - just look at the size of the buildings.  So Davie loses Hewlett creds for lack of radical insight and vision.

The second Myers report was on alternative ways of making cuts in BBC local radio - rather than merging afternoon shows on a regional basis, and sharing a pan-England show in the evenings. This one lies at the door of Helen Boaden, Director of News. The output cuts, now to be reversed, had her name on them.  However, the layers of management found by Myers are a direct legacy of the command and control strategies of Mark Byford, inheritor and chosen son of Birt, and had, quite recently, been defended by DG Thommo to MPs.

The candidate who'll be most pleased with Hewlett's analysis is George Entwistle, who's been quietly reducing the numbers of e-mail shufflers and meeting "crowd extras" of the Jana Bennett regime in Vision.