THIS topic may seem so last week, but stick with it. There is still much to think and say about the long-running soap that is the relationship between the Government and the BBC.

First, before looking at the details - only a few, because these things do fog the brain so - here is something strange about the debate, brought into focus again by the Green Paper on the future of the BBC.

This is a discussion led by politicians, who are not all that interested in television - apart from when they are on it. It is filtered through TV stations, whose bosses are too busy doing the job to watch like ordinary viewers; and further passed through the mucky charcoal of the national press.

Many of the national journalists and editors who delight in bashing the BBC probably never watch anything, because they are too wrapped up in being important.

Also, some of them work for media groups with strong television interests and their own commercial reasons for doing down the BBC.

So any contribution to the debate from newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also controls Sky Television, should be approached with caution or perhaps even a sharp stick.

In this vein British TV is an "organised hypocrisy", to borrow a phrase from Peter Bazalgette of Endemol, the producers of Big Brother.

By this, he means that the BBC, along with other companies with a public service remit, say one thing to the Government and the regulators, and another to the viewers, "whose primary reason for turning their TV sets on is to be entertained".

Two important suggestions in the Green Paper concern the licence fee, which is to be kept for now, and the BBC governors, who are to be reorganised into a board of trustees.

The licence fee may be an anomaly, but it is a passing good anomaly - the best and broadly fairest way to fund the BBC for now. Compared with what you have to pay to watch Sky, it is also a bargain.

The system isn't perfect, but it does support a broadcasting service that, for all its faults, remains a world-class act.

Anyway, television for most people is about watching, not what goes on behind the scenes. So for the viewer, the most notable recommendations in the Green Paper concerns the demise of life-style shows such as Ground Force and Changing Rooms; and a stern warning that the BBC should not chase ratings.

Are these sound or reasonable suggestions? In many senses, no.

I wouldn't want to go out on a limb for Changing Rooms, but consider how this programme came about. It was a small, cultish show on BBC2 built around a simple, but neat, notion. After transferring to BBC1, it became hugely popular. But at heart, it was a good idea and one copied by broadcasters everywhere. The fault with life-style TV doesn't lie with the BBC so much as with an insecure, rampantly copycat media, in which any good idea is kidnapped and flogged to death in ever less interesting ways.

As for chasing ratings, is the BBC meant to be unsuccessful, a ghetto producing elitist programmes which satisfy the few - or is it intended to reach out to everyone who pays for it? The dangers of producing only worthy programmes are obvious: a cul-de-sac broadcaster in which a few people are happy while everyone else passes by the end of the street.

So popular programmes, even populist ones, have to be included in the mix. A good example of where this has gone right is Who Do You Think You Are?, the BBC2 genealogy series. This was pitched perfectly to interest all sorts of viewers, high low and happily in the middle.

Fame Academy is harder to support, although I will admit to enjoying Adrian Endmondson in the Red Nose celebrity version, which ends tomorrow night.

But here's another thing. At a time when political parties are so ill-defined, when the real differences between Labour and Conservative seem small and more to do with presentation than policy, why should we allow politicians to define what shape television should take?

They can't even decide what shape they should take.

Updated: 10:13 Thursday, March 10, 2005