One thing you have to admire about the Prime Minister of Italy are his balls. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Last week, trapped in yet more scandal over "beautiful women" attending his parties, he continued to insist that he has never paid for sex: "For those who love to conquer," he said, "the joy and the most beatiful satisfaction is in the conquest. If you have to pay, I ask you, what joy is there?"
A question every TV viewer in the UK should be asking as they are told to fork out £139.50 a year to access the BBC's services. And also a question BBC director-general Mark Thompson should be considering as he heads a review of the BBC's operations after being told to do so by the BBC Trust.
Yet with the BBC in charge of a review of its own future, you could say it's unlikely that any significant or welcome change will result. And commercial media owners can hardly be encouraged by the BBC's attitude at the recent Edinburgh TV Festival when the response from BBC executives to criticism from the likes of Sky's James Murdoch seemed to smack of arrogance and being out of touch with audiences.
While I'm not convinced that the BBC's investment in online services is wholly a bad thing for the public or even the commercial sector - everybody seems set to benefit from the leadership role the BBC played in developing the iPlayer - at least four measures should emerge from the review.
These are: the closure of digital TV service BBC3, which wastes tax payers money while offering nothing that commercial rivals cannot; a ban on cross-promotion of BBC TV and radio on other platforms; stricter controls on services such as Radio 1 which seem intent on aggressively copying commercial services rather than offering anything challenging or groundbreaking; and, finally, top-slicing of the hideously expensive licence fee to help the local news providers that have been damaged by the BBC's online investment. Even the money saved from closing BBC3 would be of some use to these regional news organisations.
Not that much of this seems likely with BBC executives responsible for the decisions. While Thompson's comments today on part-privatisation of commercial arm BBC Worldwide hint at a willingness to concede an inch, they may be designed to mask the BBC's intention not to do very much at all about playing a constructive part in a diverse media landscape.
