Through a refining process of endless speeches, presentations, conferences, posturing, leaking and spinning, the British television industry is moving towards knowing its own mind in terms of what it would like.
Now all it needs is an administration that can help this most heavily regulated of sectors achieve its nirvana. The highlight of the biennial Royal Television Society Convention is usually a speech delivered by the secretary of state. Ben Bradshaw, the most recent in the rapid march of Labour culture secretaries, gave a polished performance that nodded to his roots as a broadcast journalist.
But, unusually, it was the shiny shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, whose presence on stage was most eagerly awaited. Here is the man whose well-rehearsed hands will be on the industry before you can say 20% swing.
Hunt did a Cameroonian turn of accomplished note-free extemporising. Yet the hall, it has to be said, remained on the sceptical side of bowled over. He pointed out that having four culture secretaries in two years had hampered continuity of policy. As speculation about Hunt centres on whether he will make it to the job at all or be moved to another post, there was a certain irony in pre-promising continuity.
The Conservatives, though, seem to be adopting the standard pre-election ploy of creating a fuzzy horizon spotted with bizarre bits of detailed policy. Hunt's views on the BBC and its trust are that they should be smaller and extinct respectively.
He threw away Channel 4's lifebelt, suggesting it wasn't in as much imminent financial peril as it made out. He would see some relaxation of regional cross-media ownership rules.
His historical enthusiasm for Tory governments introducing "step changes" in media policy – such as C4's invention in 1982 – means he is keen to introduce one himself, and has chosen local TV news as his target.
His enthusiasm for city-based, television-supported news franchises sees him join a crowd looking for a way to fill the gap created by disappearing local papers and withering regional news provision. But Hunt's comparisons with US affiliate stations shows a lack of knowledge of fundamental market differences; local stations there are opt-outs from the major networks, sustained by a strong economy in local TV advertising, which the UK has never really enjoyed.
In aiming to create a local news infrastructure, while saying he wanted the BBC to close smaller channels and its executives to earn no more than £192,000 a year (though in fairness he saved this detail for the Daily Mail rather than airing it in Cambridge), Hunt suggested his overall approach to policy is a little confused.
That BBC salaries need to come down is both inevitable, as the market rate for talent drops, and desirable. But to pluck a specific cap out of the air is unenforceable and therefore naive.
Hunt's disappointment that The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are counter-scheduled will attract headlines but is an irrelevance; while his suggestions on how the BBC could get smaller (channel closures, lower salaries etc) took him into dangerous territory as government input into this kind of implementation is unwise and also unwelcome.
All culture secretaries have to face the public with credible knowledge of the schedule, while facing the industry with solutions to serious industrial questions. So far Hunt is ahead on the former but behind on the latter.
