Who feels sorry for the BBC and the loss of 1,700 jobs? Guido doesn’t. He regards the job cuts as "a good start"!
A post on Platform10 calls for BBC3, BBC4 and other new services to be scrapped so that core public service broadcasting can be properly funded.
Dan Hannan thinks it’s over for Auntie: "The revolution in communications technology is making the BBC, and every other nationalised television company, irrelevant. It’s over, boys. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing anyone can do."
Ted Brocklebank MSP, for the Scottish Tories, is concerned at the BBC’s priorities: “I do genuinely think it is ridiculous that Scottish broadcasters and other staff will lose their jobs at a time when the BBC sees fit to pay out vastly inflated sums to so-called star network presenters." He must be thinking of Jonathan Ross et al.
Jeremy Hunt MP, Shadow Culture Secretary, also wonders if the BBC is getting its priorities right. In a statement just issued he said:
"Mark Thompson has a gargantuan task to persuade the public that quality in core areas such as news and documentaries will not be affected by the scale of the job cuts proposed. The recent purchase of the Lonely Planet guidebooks will also raise questions about whether the BBC is really committed to doing fewer things better."
The purchase of Lonely Planet has been estimated at £100m. This is, I guess, what Iain Dale is worried about when he warns that the BBC must stay focused on its news gathering operations.
Mr Hunt has been more robust than his predecessor in commenting on the BBC. In a Q&A with ConservativeHome in July, he agreed that the Corporation evidenced a "tendency to be pro-European, anti-American, anti-politician, anti-capitalism etc". He also described Robin Aitken’s suggestion that a small portion of the licence fee – 2% – be allocated to a new speech-based radio station that could offer an "adversarial" public service broadcasting alternative to the BBC as "a practical way" to tackle these biases. It would be great to hear more from Mr Hunt on this…