Evening all

The indefatigable Darcy Sarto (probably not his, or her, real name) has forced a figure out of the BBC. The move to a shared weekday evening programme ('scept when there's live football) across English local radio has saved £1m. That's against a BBC income last year of £5,086m, an underlying surplus of £249m, and a total BBC local radio budget of £146.5m.

Our course, it may be a double bluff by English regions boss David Holdsworth, to see if he can wrench some money off Lord Hall; BBC local radio has a grand tradition of screwing down incoming DGs. There may be more ammunition when the next audience figures come out on May 16; there'll be a clamour for transparency on The Mark Forrest Evening Show. 

Contributors to the forum page suggest David H may be in his last year with the BBC, on a current salary of £156,550, and with 28 years service under his belt. It will be interesting to see if there's an English regions restructuring before the cap on pay-outs comes in September.