Jon Thoday and Jimmy Mulville- they run the independent producers Avalon and Hat Trick- had an audacious £100m offer to buy BBC3 rejected by BBC management last week.

Media columnist Raymond Snoddy in "Newsline" has his opinion here.

"The independent production companies outlining a proposal to bid for BBC Three should be congratulated for their creative thinking, rather than dismissed".


"Televisual" has a report,

as has "The Guardian", which has the original interview with the two independent producers by Neil Midgley.

"“We got it [BBC 3] valued on the basis of it being run as an advertiser-funded channel,” says Thoday. “And the revenue, we believe, would be between £120m and £150m a year.”

He won’t name the consultancy that carried out the valuation, but says it is “a well-established research company that work for the broadcasters and other channels”. The valuation is based on BBC3’s current programmes, its viewing share (just shy of 1.5%, regularly putting it in the top 10 digital channels) and the profile of its viewers. “It’s a unique channel – it speaks to a young audience, but it’s actually slightly upmarket,” says Mulville."

I think BBC 3's channel should be ..

"The Sport Overflow Channel".

Whenever there is an FA Cup replay, or some strange tennis match that's over-running, rather than mess the proper programmes around, put the sport on BBC 3 from the start!

Sport department must have access to a lot of material that could easily fill the gaps!
Rather like Radio fivelive extra, or Radio Four Long Wave....

Proper schedules. Uninterrupted dramas...

There is a pile of archive material that could fill the air-time...
and then....

some sports 'left' the BBC as 'The BBC' wasn't prepared (or able) to allocate space to give blanket-coverage to the sport.