Password petard

Surprisingly few Charter titbits in the Sundays, given that the White Paper must be going to the printers at the start of next week, ahead of a promised Thursday publication.

Patrick Foster in The Telegraph says there maybe a governance compromise, with the Government allowed to appoint no more than half of the new unitary board, with the Chairman picking the rest. Of course, the Chairman will have been picked by the Government..and the BBC wanted half the non-executives to be appointed by the chair, not half the board.

Meanwhile, Rona Fairhead seems to have been told she's no shoo-in to the new chairmansnhip. Rona has, in theory, a contract running til 2018, but is likely to have to apply, rather than be gifted a transitionary role in 2017.

Mr Foster's thesis offers a little more clarity on the alleged disagreements over releasing more details on talent payments: he says the Culture Secretary wants to grant the National Audit Office free rein over not just the BBC, but its commercial subsidiaries. Of course, one of the whole points about commercialising the vast bulk of tv production as 'BBC Studios' is to increase (and hide) pay deals given to top talent. BBC Worldwide only discloses the remuneration of CEO Tim Davie and his Chief Finance Officer.

Most interesting for me is a reported disagreement about requiring passwords for the iPlayer. Making up your own password is what the BBC actually wants you to do when registering for myBBC online, so a philosophical ojection from Auntie looks tricky to mount. iPlayer stuff can be reached through many telly devices as well, and implementation of a separate password system would be difficult. The Tory principle here would enable the next Culture Secretary to shove Auntie into a subscription world next time round, whenever that may be...