The BBC's 88-page response to Ofcom's public service review is a sophisticated document, with a fundamental purpose.
It has been designed by a lot of clever diplomats to defend the essentials of the status quo in UK public service broadcasting - a BBC owned and funded by the licence fee paying public.
However, this is not to say the BBC is preparing to defend every last centimetre of the outer reaches of its existing empire.
It's the BBC, stupid That said, the BBC's PSB review submission it is dismissive of top slicing, though careful to root this opposition in research; critical of Ofcom's elevation of the principle of competition among PSB suppliers to promote plurality; and crystal clear about the corporation's own importance, at the centre of all things PSB.
You can almost hear the authors sighing to themselves: Why is Ofcom so fretful about the survival of public service content in Britain when the answer is so obvious? It's the BBC, stupid.
Or, as the document tartly says on Page 21: "A properly funded BBC... offers a clear guarantee that UK content will remain at the heart of the UK system... this is not given enough weight in Ofcom's overall conclusions."
United front from Lyons and Thompson The fact its release was jointly fronted by chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, and BBC director general Mark Thompson, also speaks volumes. The BBC's governance and executive arms presented a united front. Their overall mission is identical, though the approach by the two arms is apparently somewhat different.
Lyons, in his "hands off the licence fee" stance is thought by critics to have gone native. The executive, led by Thompson, who are to draw up more hard edged offers to help ITV, Channel 4 and Five, pose as more open to aid in kind than the BBC Trust. But this is the age old good cop, bad cop approach, which is usually pretty effective.
The response from competitors was predictable. The BBC's views were barely out from under embargo before Channel 4 started to splutter irritation.
That said, it does take a certain self belief, nay arrogance, to lecture other broadcasters, as Thompson did at Monday's press briefing, to follow the BBC's example and set a five year, 20% efficiency target, adopt its digital production initiatives, and, in the case of Channel 4, rely more on self help rather than pleading for help.
"A similar approach at Channel 4 could have a significant effect on its business model," the BBC's PSB review response says - a point amplified more bluntly at the press briefing.
Yet I also know that this is a view held by many of Channel 4's former executives and by leading independent producer. They talk about the need for self help in private Soho club and bars, but they are just too dependent on the channel to say so openly, or for publication.
As for Ofcom trying to find institutional PSB solutions - well its critics point to the encouragement they gave Channel 4's digital radio venture to challenge the BBC - and look where that has ended up.
Hands off BBC Worldwide The BBC is also very direct in ruling out any offer of handing Channel 4 a stake in BBC Worldwide, its commercial arm. I think Thompson was right on this point - it's a solution that needed to be knocked on the head. Anyway, is not possible under the BBC's charter and was always a product of fertile minds at an investment bank.
Another key point is that the BBC PSB review document is sprinkled liberally with references to the corporation's new sixth purpose: "To deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications and technologies."
This is a verbal defence against Ofcom's concept of an "excess licence fee" - the money currently earmarked for digital switch over, which is freed up after 2012. The BBC now seems to be saying that it should keep hold of this excess licence fee after switchover and use it convert the old and downmarket who are not interested in broadband.
PSB partnerships Then there is the somewhat nebulous offer from the BBC of PSB partnerships, whether it is technical - in the tradition of Freeview, Freesat, HD and the iPlayer - or assistance, as in clips of regional news for ITV or access to BBC production methods for indies. But for the life of me I cannot see how ITV regional news using the same stories as BBC regional news solves anything much.
I have also been round long enough as a media journalist to know that some of these approaches have been tried before and haven't produced very much in the past.
Most significantly, the BBC's mission to partner with other organisations and share in building public value was promised in the last licence fee renewal debates three to four years ago.
Yet where's the evidence that anything has changed? The most report from the BBC Trust on bbc.co.uk found it was operating more like a walled garden, rather than sending online users outwards.
Finally, intrinsic to Ofcom's consultation are the four models for the future of PSB, which are: evolution of the present system; the BBC the only model; BBC and Channel 4 as the core PSB institutions; and fourth, a broad spread of competitive funding, alongside the BBC.
It seems to me that the BBC, predictably, but maybe sensibly, is in favour of evolution, with tweaks and adjustments.
That's where a big beast in the jungle would naturally prefer to rest its case. A more co-operative BBC? Certainly. But one that never loses sight of its own mission and certainty of its own central place in UK public service broadcasting.
