It seems like only yesterday that BBC Director-general, Mark Thompson, was complaining about top-slicing. According to the Telegraph Mr Thomson said:

"There is a suspicion that for some years now there has been a small group of people who have been ideologically focussed more on the principle of getting a wedge into the licence fee and trying to prove a point about the principle of top-slicing, rather than having a particular urgent need.

"When Ofcom was interested in a public service publisher, it was going to take about £100m and the licence fee looked like a good source for that. Then it was Channel 4 that was going to need perhaps £100m and the licence fee was a good source for it. ..."

Strange to see that today the BBC has more or less officially abandoned teenagers, stating the lead role that Channel 4 has in serving that audience. In fact Mark Thompson again mentioned the role Channel 4 has in serving the teen audience during a live interview on Sky News this afternoon.

This blog saw problems coming ages ago. If the BBC can't fulfill its obligations as a public service broadcaster and has to rely on Channel 4, why shouldn't Channel 4 get a share of the licence fee? In fact it seems only fair that it should.

The other option, still open to the BBC, is that it reverts back to the time before children's programmes were "dumbed down," so that they once again appeal to, and serve, teenagers as well as younger kids.