When someone is as deceptively powerful as Jane Tranter and has occupied the same role as arbiter of national taste across BBC drama for eight years - and expanded her empire to encompass comedy, films and acquired dramas too - it is inevitable that they will come under fierce attack.
That is the back drop to her Royal Television Society speech - a rarity - last night. Tranter's a highly political executive and she knew she had to stand up and make her case.
In April the Guardian brought a debate to the wider public that had been bubbling bitterly away off screen among drama producers, directors and writers. Gareth McLean asked in MediaGuardian: Is drama safe at the BBC?
Gareth's piece was useful in explaining to bemused audiences why BBC1's popular Cranford had fared so badly at the recent Baftas, with members voting for Channel 4's minority interest Britz, Boy A and Mark of Cain instead.
The Bafta judges were also openly scathing of too many bonnets: the BBC1 Sunday night series Lark Rise to Candleford, swiftly recommissioned, infuriated many in TV drama, who saw it as a soft centred pastiche.
McLean's article acted as a lightning conductor: it was followed up by BBC Northern Ireland head of drama turned independent producer Robert Cooper in May. In another MediaGuardian piece, Cooper lamented the lack of hard edged contemporary authored work on the BBC and also drew attention to the role and power of Tranter's right hand man, drama commissioner Ben Stephenson.
It was no surprise, said her critics, that one of most interesting BBC contemporary dramas this year, 10 Days to War, a series of short films based on real characters and events in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq war and broadcast during Newsnight's airtime on BBC2, was produced by the corporation's radio and current affairs departments.
Now, I've spent time in the past months quietly discussing the situation with drama producers - some well known, benefiting from BBC patronage, others less so. And I've also been musing also about the way fortunes fluctuate.
For a start, Tranter asked: "Can anyone remember how bare and depressing the overall BBC drama cupboard was?", before she took charge in 1999.
Well yes, it was. And it is easy to overlook the success of the Tranter-led revival, from Spooks to Bleak House, to Doctor Who - and how hard it is to keep driving it forward.
ITV1's new drama output since the veteran commissioner Nick Elliott retired a year ago have been, overall, an embarrassment to the channel. Note that ITV1 is now picking up a remake of The Prisoner, Lew Grade's wonderful sixties classic
Tranter is also on firm ground when she says there was no TV drama golden age, that Play for Today was of its time, and that series and serials chime with the way people watch television - a lot, every day - compared to single dramas, which work well for the theatre and cinema.
I also think her blunt view about the role of the writer as essential in conception but ultimately part of a team effort - alongside a strong producer, director, and executive producer - is correct. Visit any drama in any stage of production and that's obvious.
Tranter is realistic enough to recognise that there are problems: there are fewer new BBC drama slots than there used to be because of the number of returning drama series. She's always having to say no. But is she really supposed to throw out Holby, Casualty or Waterloo Road?
Here's the nub: her team read more than 2,000 scripts a year They bring to her a tiny percentage to consider. It is the filtering system that is worrying, and power exercised through the final selection.
Though I also happen to know that from time to time BBC channel controllers simply push through their own decisions on scripts and proposals.
So, yes, introducing some different notes, some more diversity, some contemporary pieces, to what one venerable producer described to me as BBC drama's "Mallory Towers" is needed.
However, tucked into Tranter's speech is something hugely significant, a very clear warning. For the first time she's spelt out her two-pronged strategy of how to handle ever reducing BBC drama budgets - as audience expectations are going up.
One: make dramas smaller - concentrating on text, performance, a handful of actors, a couple of sets, like the studio dramas of great theatres.
Two: the BBC has to go global, find co-producers, stars and scale to match. Into that group falls Heroes, The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency and last year's acclaimed Five Days.
I think this is going on, more widely than we suspect, across the BBC. Now that is something to debate.
