Peter

Have you been in a TV audience?

I've been to quite a few TV shows in the past, thought not many since TVC closed, and a lot of radio recordings. I personally prefer the later as it is quicker and you avoid recording breaks and retakes - and is generally very civilised. (I went to a quiz show with Jake Humprey & went home during the break between the two shows - after about three hours!) I've been to shows like Never mind the Buzzcocks and They think its all over which seem to work on the basis that if you go on for long enough a thirty minutes of the jokes will work - many don't. That said live TV recordings can be great fun, the energy level is always high & there is always the danger that something will go wrong. I even ended up on the Late Edition Live - wish I'd set the video recorder up for that.

I was a contestant on the Weakest Link in the early days (the recording was on the day the third programme was transmitted). I'm told that they started off doing four recordings a day but reduced it to three as no one could manage four. It certainly took in excess of two hours. Everyone had to do (at least) two walks of shame. And I asked for a retake when I stumbled in the interview.

I always wonder what it was like in the days when you used a razor blade to edit videotape and you were only allowed a few edits a programme. If you look at old shows such as Dad's Army you see fluffs that would certainly result in a retake these days but I don't think that they suffer for that.

Tim Davie Appointed BBC Director General

I'm not worried about left wing or right wing jokes however you define them. However if all the jokes come from the same direction it gets rather tedious. They also have to be funny - during the Gulf war (lets go back some way) there was far too much polemic. However comments looking at issues from a fresh direction can be very interesting. Maybe not left wing but left field.

As an example, some shows - the Mash Report, Newsjack on the radio come to mind seem to have endless jokes knocking men but none women. Yes thee are more men in senior positions but fewer men go to university, and tend to fare worse in recessions (I'd be very happy to be proved wrong.) I really hate the "foreigners coming over to take our jobs" being a liberal myself but if I were an unemployed young man hearing about industry after industry claiming that they want to attract more women I might be a bit upset. Yes attack pompous men but don't get tedious.

If I were the Government I might look at Ofcom which have very liberal views on diversity. (I'm not certainly saying that this is wrong, just an observation.) The BBC is looking to move more operations out of London but to apply a mix of diversity seen in the capital!

Is the issue that BoJo doesn't like criticism?