It was news not only to my listeners and viewers but to any number of ambitious Tories who had their eyes on the succession.
The BBC Trust, which is the governing body of the BBC, drew up its report in consultation with listeners, viewers and other broadcasters.
We're announcing a wide range of recommendations on BBC Sport, and in any outcome there will still be as much sport as usual on BBC Television on weekend afternoons and throughout the schedule - with even more options available to digital viewers and listeners.
All of this is observed through the eyes of western journalists, who try to capture and make sense what is going on in the rapidly changing country to their home viewers and listeners.
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National Association of Viewers and Listeners president, the Reverend Graham Stevens, warned against making hasty changes.
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We were to be given an award by the National Viewers and Listeners Association, run by Mary Whitehouse, the UK version of Jerry Falwell.
"We are delighted to be giving web users, viewers and listeners even more extensive coverage of Ireland's largest sporting event, " said BBC Sport NI's Executive Producer Shane Glynn.
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It wants to launch four new TV channels and five new radio stations, all funded by the recent increase in the licence fee, to broaden the choice available to digital viewers and listeners.
So, without any guidance from west London or Pacific Quay, it's up to the SNP to figure out how it carves Scotland out of the BBC without losing the elements that viewers and listeners value.
Broadcasters will not deliberately try to make life more difficult for viewers and listeners in the digital age of personal video recorders and IPTV, but they will have to work with content owners who are lobbying hard to protect their copyrighted assets through, for example, automatic expiry on programmes.
"Because it's paid for out of the licence fee it needs to justify what it does so it needs to find clever ways of measuring its contribution to our lives as individiduals as viewers and listeners, its contribution to society at large and its contribution to the whole of the broadcasting world, " he said.
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The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association and other leading figures say it is an intrusion on the most personal part of life.
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