The BBC is working for reauthorization and answering charges it has dumbed down – especially in its arts coverage. “It was a lot easier decades ago to capture an audience. There was an absence of choice. People look back at a golden age, but if you look at audience numbers and the overall amount of cultural coverage, it doesn’t compare with today. But programmes such as Civilisation loom larger in people’s memories because there wasn’t much choice. Today it is harder to draw people’s attention to things. There is a much greater range of programmes now than in the age of Dallas and Dynasty, which were peak-time American imports – and they aren’t there any more. There has also been a much greater fragmentation in the arts and music.”