TELEVISION OUTSKIRTS, Osterley, Wednesday (Mediocre Grauniad) — In a submission to the BBC Trust, BSkyB has lambasted the BBC for using taxpayer’s money to invest in television, claiming the move would “stifle innovation” in the marketplace.

“They shouldn’t go off and do their own thing and use their unique funding to drive a coach and horses through the market development,” said Sky commercial director Stephen Nuttall. “That’s Rupert’s job.”

Rupert Murdoch said that the BBC and Google were conspiring to make all content free. “The BBC model can’t possibly work. You’d think it was good or something. Well, it isn’t, it’s shit. Hardly any tits at all.” He condemned Google blatantly stealing content from news services such as News International, all of whose papers’ websites not merely fail to block Google but actually have a special site map just for Google to index content from. The Independent faithfully echoed Mr Murdoch’s words in Sunday’s editorial, railing against Google despite themselves serving up an index page especially for them.

Google did not comment, but did mumble something about newspaper advertising being down 29% on last year and internet advertising having greater dollar value than television advertising. In other news, the search for a new chairman for ITV is in its sixth month.