And no, I don’t believe that #ilovethebbc showed any love for the senior management. Certainly all the use of that hashtag that I saw was accompanied by “isn’t Sherlock great”, or “I love Just a Minute”, or “ah, the BBC Proms”. As a former employee, I’m proud of the BBC’s programmes, and (mainly) proud of what you see online. However – and perhaps I’m slightly more affected than most – I see little in BBC senior management’s decisions to be proud about.

(As an aside, the ‘captcha’ that I’ve been given for this comment says “bectiou”, which seems too close to BECTU for comfort!)

Wasn’t #ilovethebbc and their related both an endorsement of the programmes *and* the organisation itself (of which the management plays a part in that). Didn’t the outburst of support imply that users had connected the progs/content to challenges on the organisation/licence fee ? One of those trending moments (there’s been a few) was in response to awareness that the licence fee rightly or wrongly under threat. Although yes I also wish he’d said hashtag or tweet and got the grammar right.

I agree with you about the excellence of some of NPR’s programming and the innovation it has pursued online (in your blogposts/speeches etc) although aren’t comparisons with BBC Radio as a whole rather than Radio 4 fairer in terms of reach? And was he “slagging off” (wasn’t much of a slag off tbh) PBS and NPR or just challenging the perceived assumption about the (limited) role of public broadcasting in national debate, regardless of quality/programming some of which is of course provided by the BBC.

Yes. The World Service is a “remarkable bargain”