One slice or two ?

Lord Hall, Director General of the BBC, has given an interview to Broadcast's Jake Kanter, where coverage of Charter Renewal in general has been freed from their usual pay wall.

Worth a read. Sadly, it looks as though the debate about the next licence fee will be conducted in terms of a shopping list, constrained by a purse with less in it. “This is where the debate has to be out in public, which is: what is the scale of services you want from the BBC? If you want to take out £200m because of decriminalisation, that’s £200m less for content. That’s a whole load of radio services, or a chunk of the drama budget.”

The gavotte will apparently be led by a Government Green paper, followed by a BBC position paper later this year. Tone says “The NHS has been very clear about the choices there. We’ve got to be clear in our own smaller and less vital way".

He also plans an announcement about management layers next week. Let's hope it's more radical than the Bonfire of The Boards, where now suits still sit in endless meetings - they're just not called Boards.