Talk of the Trade: Zooming in on the BBC

THE BBC and its top executives will come under the spotlight next Tuesday, when the Royal Television Society holds its special autumn symposium. The conference was supposed to address the Government's Green Paper on the corporation, but David Mellor's departure from the department of National Heritage has delayed publication until early next month. The debate is sure to centre on the controversial changes that the BBC is wreaking on itself. There are those who believe that the corporation has made a Faustian bargain with the Government: that it will be guaranteed the licence fee, but make such changes, cutbacks and retreats that it will no longer be a central national

institution.