While there's a growing chorus of protest against any attempt to help out Channel 4 by handing over a slice of the licence fee, there's not much creative thinking going on about alternative assistance.
Does anyone mind if I make a suggestion?
Since I do accept that Channel 4's business model is stressed, though it is not in meltdown, I've been trying to apply my knowledge as its historian to its future.
I do not think there is a silver bullet solution. But at yesterday's Westminster Media Forum I put forward two remedies, in line with Channel 4's hybrid status of being an advertiser-funded network as well as patron of independent producers.
First, Channel 4's financial problems are in large measure due to the nature of the advertising market. Until 1999, C4 was guaranteed slots to promote its programmes to the much larger audiences on ITV, worth an estimated £30m annually to C4 in free advertising. Since ITV and Channel 4 are competing vigorously for the same pot of advertising, that can't be reinstated.
But Channel 4's financial health now depends on keeping up its audience share (and commercial impacts) among the two key audiences it sells to advertisers - young adults and upmarket people.
So, and this may sound a bit wacky but stay with me, why not give Channel 4 promotional slots on BBC channels around relevant programmes?
Since the BBC is securely funded by the licence fee, it will not be materially damaged by this help in kind and Channel 4 would gain a chance to speak, say, to BBC3 viewers, Radio 1 listeners, BBC2 and BBC4 lovers of documentaries, and to the huge BBC online audience.
This also goes with the grain of the BBC's much vaunted policies for forming partnerships and alliances with other bodies creating public value, and giving their work prominence.
Second, what is the independent sector, which has become so powerful and successful, going to do to help its greatest but weakened patron?
Channel 4 has said that the 2003 Communications Act, which empowered independents and gave them control over exploiting their programme rights, cost it £30m a year, for which it was not compensated.
This settlement with PACT needs to be urgently revisited by Ofcom.
It is outside the narrow public service review underway, but it should not be outside of the wider debate. I am surprised it has not been mentioned - it's the elephant in the public service broadcasting room.
Channel 4, in its Next on 4 policy, after a long internal debate, committed itself to remaining a publisher broadcaster. This means it will not be building up an asset base in programming for the future.
That commitment has a real value, and it needs to be recognised - not least by the merry band of multi-millionaires running production companies.
Maggie Brown is the author of A Licence to be Different - The Story of Channel 4
