Why interference is an ongoing issue for the BBC

Suppose the government had left BBC governance in its old trust mode as the latest royal charter took effect. Then, in this Brexit-ridden, DUP-dependent time, there would have been any number of veiled threats and feelings of collars. Covert bullying as usual.

But the trust went west with this charter. Ofcom got the whole regulatory job. And lo! here’s media secretary Karen Bradley writing to them direct demanding more quotas, more targets, more diversity than the framework agreement with the BBC the supreme regulator negotiated. Where’s the “new vision” that seeks more distinctiveness and collaboration? she asks, in page after page of “yes, Minister” prose.

But brother, there is no new vision. Just the same old Whitehall game of trying to make life miserable in Broadcasting House, now destined for a new playing field.

Mail TV head to head with Fox?

Daily Mail TV, launching next month, says it has 200 reporters seeking out “the best exclusive stories and videos to share … across the US”. Very ambitious, with Mail Online editor Martin Clarke on video praising his team’s sterling work in securing pictures of Kim Kardashian in a bikini, “lumps”, “bumps” and all. But where does this leave your actual Daily Mail, the stick of rock with Dacre written through it? How about a double whammy: real alt-Mail TV, the lump that bumps Fox News into oblivion?