Mark Thompson is a well-known believer in the true spirit of public broadcasting. But he's also the new director-general of a BBC that needs money. His speech to BBC staff last week was heavy on public value as a guiding ethos but, unsurprisingly, he gave no hint at throwing away prosperous commercial branches of the BBC empire.
Agencies and media owners don't seem to think that too much of what's fundamental and successful at the BBC will change - even the more controversial, money-making arms - despite Thompson's credibility as a public-service man.
"I think that Mark learned at Channel 4 that the BBC has significant commercial advantages that it is utilising to full benefit," Andy Barnes, Channel 4's sales director, says. He finds it unlikely that Thompson will want to ditch any of those commercial advantages.
Mark Jarvis, Carat's head of media, says: "He's not about to chuck out the baby with the bath water." Jarvis notes that Thompson's first steps at the BBC look like a classic business school treatment.
The new director-general is going to need to play a professional managerial hand. With the BBC in debt and with charter renewal looming at the end of 2006, he certainly isn't going to be dawdling at too many late lunches.
"We're going to have to change the BBC more rapidly and radically over the next three to five years than at any point in its history," he says.
Thompson has started off with some swift and significant pruning. The main BBC decision-making board is down from 17 to nine. And he's announced immediate reviews of four different parts of the machine - including a commercial review to be completed by the end of the year.
It is likely that he'll go a bit easier on the aggressive ratings chasing that was one of the hallmarks of his predecessor, Greg Dyke. "I think he'll be very different," Mick Desmond, the chief executive of ITV Broadcasting, says. "I think Mark will be a very public-service broadcaster." Desmond believes that ratings will be less of an issue and, instead, reach will become a priority.
It's true that Thompson has been banging on about upping the importance of "public value", which is in line with the theme of the BBC's case during its charter review, entitled "Building Public Values". One way he's aiming to do that is by reaching more people: "By helping to lead the challenge of building a digital Britain. By making sure that everyone - not just the better off or the media savvy or those who choose or can afford to subscribe, but everyone - can share in the benefits of the new broadcasting.
By raising standards everywhere in content, whether in traditional TV and radio or in new media. And by finding new ways of making that content available to audiences whenever and wherever they want it. By creating a far more open, responsive, agile BBC," he says.
That's all fine and dandy, but critics feel we need to be a bit clearer on what the BBC's role really is. It will be one of Thompson's jobs to clarify the BBC's role as a public-service broadcaster.
"It has to be much more defined than it is currently," Paul Curtis, the managing director of Viacom Brand Solutions, says.
Curtis is not as sure as Desmond about the clear water between Dyke and Thompson. "I imagine Thompson will be as populist as Dyke," he says. He points to Thompson's role as one of the architects of the BBC's digital expansion, which included the launch of its children's channels. "It's really given the BBC an unfair advantage over commercial competitors," he says.
For now, though, observers are watching Thompson with interest. As Barnes says: "We wait with bated breath to see just exactly what he's going to do on the commercial front."
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