Content man

Observers of the Twitter timeline of James Purnell (he has 15 thousand followers) have detected a change of emphasis in recent weeks.

The BBC strategy thought-leader has shifted from apercus on change, innovation and Charter renewal, to documentaries, the arts and music. He's prone to retweet the thoughts of his old DCMS oppo, Alan Davey, now Controller of Radio 3. He's bigging up American-in-London Professor Sarah Churchwell (Jim was recently married to another such, Alexis Kirschbaum). He's reflecting on his French upbringing, with points to articles about Parisian duo Air. There's still the odd reference to hipster E2 eateries and wine bars, but my cynical readers suggest the Tweets reflect a man striving to mount one of the three output humps of Lord Hall's new, simpler BBC structure.

No wonder Private Eye described the BBC Director General as "frazzled".