Did her warm embrace of Allen signal her recognition, perhaps even her support, of the points he made?
Allen made the expected defence of his tenure, outrageously claiming that ITV's hands were tied behind its back by PSB and had a gun held to its head by CRR.
But his points about the BBC's creative stranglehold over its in-house production and the threat to C4 from having no in-house production have already stimulated a debate.
More controversially, his questioning of Ofcom's lack of control over a publicly-funded C4 is timely. 4Radio may well provide the digital kick up the backside that radio needs, but Allen is right to question why there was no public debate in advance of its launch.
Futhermore, as Luke Johnson conceded when he was quizzed on the PSB issue, it is C4 executives who judge whether the channel is meeting its public service remit, opaque as it is.
Johnson - an entrepreneurial capitalist - seemed embarrassed by his chief executive's plea for £100m of annual public funding.
So he should when C4 is profiting hugely from CRR and creamed off £70m of ad revenue from ITV last year.
C4 cannot be both a ratings-chasing commercial animal and a PSB operator. Ofcom now has to decide which it should be.
- Colin Grimshaw is the deputy editor of Media Week.
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