There is a compelling case for letting BBC3 and BBC4 continue unscathed, which loyal viewers, currently turned lobbyists and petitioners, are failing to deploy in the current debate about which digital channel should bear the brunt of the corporation's Delivering Quality First cuts.
Instead of focusing on the supply of intelligent programmes on BBC4 or cut through comedy and youth skewing current affairs on BBC3, the correct question is this: why on earth does anyone wants to force the BBC into a divorce from a highly successful digital channels strategy?
What's more, it is a strategy now deployed with demonstrable effectiveness across all the public service broadcasters, giving them a spring in their step, a renewed sense of purpose, as digital switchover accelerates to completion next year.
Look at the overall performance of the four terrestrial public service broadcasters, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. They have achieved, in the past year or so, a remarkable but little trumpeted act of consolidation, stabilising their total share of viewing, instead of constantly ceding ground to multichannel broadcasters.
Ofcom's annual UK Communications Market report, published in August, noted for the first time since the survey began in 2003, the overall audience share of the heritage broadcasters held steady at 71%.
This was achieved by adding the growing 17% of viewing taken by their digital channels – including BBC3, BBC4, ITV2, E4 and 5USA – to the 54% share of the five main terrestrial networks.
It has taken more than a decade for the PSBs to work out successful strategies to counter audience fragmentation, but they have arrived, though admittedly at vastly different speeds and routes.
So now they all have targeted demographic or passion-focused digital channels, offering another chance to view favourites such as soaps and dramas, spin-offs, acquisitions, plus a sprinkling of a few choice, expertly targeted commissions (The Inbetweeners, The Only Way is Essex).
So – and I hope BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten has been well briefed on this point — it would be a folly for the trust to insist on the closure or dilution of either BBC3 or BBC4's output if he cares about the overall continued impact of BBC programming.
I'd go further. In a sensible climate, BBC3 and BBC4 ought to be expanded, enriched, and most certainly enjoy a start time of, say, midday, much earlier than 7pm.
This may not seem realistic in a period of impending 20% budget cuts as part of DQF, when they share channel airtime with CBeebies and CBBC. If this is impractical, then perhaps BBC4 programming could be switched to BBC2 during daytime.
The reality is that all four of these successful BBC digital channels are unfavourably corseted by time constraints, as broadcasting logic suggests their resources should be marginally increased, and savings found somewhere else.
