Marginalia

Some conundrums from BBC DG Lord Hall's New Year speech to staff. He said the Mailbox at Birmingham is now full (700 working there - the big boost is those elements of HR which, under previous regimes, were contracted out). But next year, we are told, there'll be room for a BBC Three production base in the city - in the Mailbox, or elsewhere ?

He said BBC Children's apps have now been downloaded 11 million times. Sounds impressive, but when you realise the top 30 apps in the world only start measuring at over 1 billion, there's a way to go. He says Radio 1 is the biggest radio station in the world on YouTube. Mmm. Radio 1 has 3.5m subscribers. Teenage fashion tipster Zoella has 11m. Radio 1 uploaded an acoustic video from Ed Sheeran five days ago - and it has acquired an impressive 4.4m views. However, that's as a proportion of 25 billion views of YouTube around the world over the same period.

There was an exhortation: 'I want the BBC during this Charter to be defined by boldness, originality, and risk taking. I want us to have the courage of our convictions, to dare to do the things that others won’t. To hear, again and again, “only the BBC would do that” '

Yesterday, BBC1 announced a new Saturday night chat-show/entertainment format from Mrs Brown. Only Old Mother Riley would do that.