A word in your shell

Over at Tortoise, Matthew D'Ancona has been listening to BBC executives, anonymously of course, sounding off about their brilliant work in the pandemic.

He says that the big interviews for the next DG have been postponed until June. He also says that it was former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale who explained to Johnson and Cummings the key problem with moving BBC to subscription only - the 18 million households that watch on DTT, otherwise known as Freeview.  There are nine BBC channels on the basic service - but also 62 commercial offerings, and there's no obvious way of monetising it other than advertising.