The pressure and competition from other broadcasters on the BBC - from many areas - is such that listener/viewer figures are more paramount in their thinking than ever before. With that in view, it seems more likely to me that contracts to independent programme makers (like Smooth Ops) will be awarded with an eye to the ratings that those programmes can bring in. This isn't rocket science, just the market dictating or influencing the action - and a totally different environment from the one in which the BBC operated, say, 20 years ago.

Smooth Ops are bound to have the question of ratings and listener figures in mind when creating their programmes - and 'tune' the programmes accordingly. How they tune them is, of course, open to speculation.