Three or Four ?

The bookies have decided that it's BBC3 for the chop in the next round of Tony Hall cuts. This fits with an organisation concentrating on quality drama, Agatha Christie, the Arts and all that amazing stuff. BBC4's weekly reach is around 14%, BBC3 around 23%. BBC4 superserves over 50 ABC1's; BBC3 delivers 56% C2DEs - historically and increasingly underserved by Auntie, and not likely to kick up the same fuss the 6Music lot did.

But there's an element of running round trying to hang on to that demographic, maybe through making BBC3 an online channel. Last year it spent £4.6m on traditional distribution costs (and The BBC Trust have expressed concern that the budgets for online transmission are not currently sitting in then right place), so there's not much to save there. £16m went on infrastructure and support; perhaps you could halve that. But how much could you cut of a £89.7m content budget and still call it a channel ?