Bigger slices

Another interesting day at Broadcasting House, with the DG expected to announce how he's going to make an additional £100m savings for each of the next two years.

The move of BBC3 to online has caused trouble; I commend to you the thinking of Ash Atalla on Newsnight last night. It also is the subject of intense debate in the technical community, who are clear that internet distribution is not free. One presumes live streaming is out of the question, but that's what creates buzz and shared experience. The saving on Freeview and satellite distribution is illusory - the BBC needs the channel anyway for CBeebies, and has to find spectrum for the promised BBC1+1.  In content, plenty is repeated from other channels, principally EastEnders, which presumably loses a cross-subsidy and a nice little consolidated audience top-up for turnaround producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins. Regular imports like Family Guy will fall by the wayside. People will want to see the final content spend today - if it drops below £50m, it's a half-hearted experiment.

So we're left chasing between £50m and £70m to make up Tone's numbers today. It looks like a return to salami slicing - but the chunks are bigger.