Agenda

Another busy day for the BBC. Lenny Henry talks to the Culture Select Committee about diversity, and will almost certainly repeat calls for part of licence-fee funding to be ring-fenced for productions involving many more black and Asian ethnic minority employees. His logic - that BBC budgets are already sliced up to point specifically at Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Gaelic, Welsh, The North, Birmingham, never mind the various genre groups - seems undefeatable, even by cheery Lord Hall.

Has acting BBC Trust Chair Diane Coyle helped on this front, with her pitch for the big job in a speech last night ?  Not really - the press have focused on the news that it's taken a BBC Audience Council to point out to the Trust the shock EastEnders reality, that there are almost twice as many white people living in fictional E20 as in real life E17. The Masoods, the Foxes and one Latvian market inspector ain't going to be enough for producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins - Nigerian, Ghanaian, Somalian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Chinese (etc) parents should be queuing up to get their kids into those stage schools quick.

Meanwhile, the BBC are meeting the unions on pay. Since the first offer, on 15th May, the BBC has found funding for diversity initiatives, music strategy, Arts Online, DAB transmitters, a new HQ for BBC Wales - and money to hire Lucy Manning and Ed Campbell from ITN. How amusing will the second offer be, as the unions ballot on withdrawing their labour ?