Letters: Ratings Game

Sir: Will Wyatt, chief executive of BBC Broadcast, asserts (Podium, 3 March) that the demise of ITV's News at Ten demonstrates that "ITV and the BBC are not in the same game .... ITV shoves inconvenient genres out of the way". By contrast he claims that the BBC continues virtuously to schedule its current affairs in peak time.

How does he reconcile this with the move of Panorama from 9.30 to 10pm, Omnibus from 10 to 10.40 and Question Time from 10 to 11?

BBC1 is playing exactly the same game as ITV, scheduling "inconvenient genres" out of the way where they will do least damage to ratings and share. Given the unique way the BBC is funded, is there not an onus on BBC Broadcast to schedule BBC 1 current affairs strands at a time convenient for people to watch them?

PETER MENNEER

Claygate, Surrey