Imagine going into the offices of a television commissioner in, say, the early 2000s.
Could you imagine a single American web link touching it?
Can you imagine a commercial broadcaster in the UK giving it a whirl?
Yet in 2003, this is just the proposal that producer Richard Hopkins put together.
He took it into the BBC, and, to be fair, got knocked back.
A little while later, the BBCs own Fenia Vardanis had a not dissimilar idea.
It got a prime time slot.
Bruce Forsyth was hired to host.
It was a hit from day one.
A bold, risky, broad gamble that worked.
As Michael Grade may have once said, surely thats champagne all round.
Yet it seems the popularity of the BBC certainly in the current political climate may yet be its Kryptonite.
Yet thats just the beginning of what most concede to be times of real change for the organisation.
Why spend the money on shows likeDoctor WhoandEastEnders, when theres no commercial organisation that wouldnt?
(overlooking, of course, the fact that the BBC took a gamble on both to start with.
Lets say the BBC stops mixing in populist output amongst its content.
It would be fair to assume that its ratings would drop.
Not for nothing are there very real fears for the shape of a future BBC right now.
But still: lets pause for a minute and consider just whats happening.
The green paper kickstarts a public consultation to review the BBCs charter.
The consultation itself runs until October 8th 2015, with the current charter expiring at the end of 2016.
Whittingdale then admits that we need to ask some hard questions.
And what are the right structures of governance and regulation?
Which, on paper, doesnt really sound that unreasonable.
But what lies beneath the language?
The last week or so has seen a collection of people famous and otherwise leaping to the BBCs defence.
Well come back to that point shortly, though.
Lets get to the nub of it.
And yet every day of every week, the BBC is broadcasting programming that nobody else would touch.
Shouldnt someone in high office, or with a popular platform, be pointing this out?
Not all of it works, but thats part of the point.
You want a modern take on Sherlock Holmes, steeped in the writing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
A documentary about steam railways?
Broad coverage of the womens football World Cup?
A radio documentary about a new percussion instrument?
This is the kind of material that the BBC is constantly supporting.
Weve all got things we dont like about the corporation, and rightly so.
But conversely, you never fully appreciate what youve lost until its gone, either completely or in spirit.
Thats the danger here.
Worse, it makes it an uneven one.
Then theres the Daily Mail.
Its the opposite of public service broadcasting, and its content reflects that.
Newspapers in this country are not.
It is not hard to see how that affects content.
The truth is that something feels different this time.
BBC Director General, Tony Hall, seems to fear the worst.
I believe the BBC should continue to make programmes for everyone.
A BBC that doesnt inform, educate and entertain is not the BBC the public know and love.
The great majority are happy to pay the licence fee.
The BBC belongs to this country.
The public are our shareholders, he said.
The BBC will publish its own proposals for its future in September.
The BBC isnt a perfect beast, nor will it ever be.
Yet its worth bearing things in mind.
For every The Voice, theres a Kermode & Mayo Film Review Show (find us one better).
But you know the problem with spreadsheets?
They can tell you the cost of anything you like.
Yet they cant tell you the value of a single thing…
