CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: If the BBC doesn't know what viewers want, I'll tell them for free!

The BBC is to spend £50 million on market research over the next four years in a bid to discover what viewers want. It’s a ludicrous sum of money, to discover something that the Corporation must know already — because their viewers constantly tell them. However much the virtue signallers at New Broadcasting House want to prove their moral superiority, viewers don’t choose what to watch according to its ‘wokeness’. The BBC has just spent £80 million relaunching BBC3, its self-conscious platform for ‘youth content’ — the TV equivalent of a middle-aged man in a hoodie and trainers. One Saturday night this year saw a celebrity edition of The Weakest Link followed by The Wall v Celebrities, Pointless Celebrities and then Michael McIntyre’s celebrity gameshow The Wheel... all spread across three hours 20 minutes on BBC1.