Competitors to the BBC have criticised plans for governors to publish a table of policy promises, and to employ extra staff to advise the governors on independent decisions.

Writing in the Financial Times, the chief executive of ITN, Stewart Purvis, said: "The idea that these same governors will somehow bring BBC management to heel in the future through an annual statement of promises, when they have conspicuously failed to hold them to specific promises in the past, is frankly laughable."