What do you Get if you Merge BBC Three and BBC Four? BBC Throur

Speculation is rife that, rather than biting the bullet and choosing between putting either BBC Three or BBC Four entirely out of their misery, BBC bean counters will instead try to merge both channels into one single entity.
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This week sees the publication of the long-awaited report into the future of the BBC. Speculation is rife that, rather than biting the bullet and choosing between putting either BBC Three or BBC Four entirely out of their misery, BBC bean counters will instead try to merge both channels into one single entity.

A good way to look at this plan is to imagine how successful you would be if you tried to bake a cake and change a car tyre at the same. On a Motorway hard shoulder. During an electrical storm. While wearing a top hat and tails. And being attacked by a rabid dog.

The name of the new middle-brow channel is likely to be either BBC Throur or BBC 3 And A Half. The new channel will take elements of BBC Four's highbrow schedule that no-one watches, and add them to the dumbed-down, crass, mass-market gawpathons offered by BBC Three.

A glimpse at the report outlines how this could work in practice by suggesting what a typical evening's viewing on BBC Throur, or BBC 3 And A Half, could look like.

BBC THROUR OR BBC 3 AND A HALF

Typical Evening lineup (Note from BBC management: after two weeks of intensive research involving a team of four people, Wednesday was found to be the most typical day.)

Wednesday

7pm

The Secret Life of Airports (And The Celebrities Who've Flown Through Them)

Hastily re-edited version of the classic three part history of air travel, clunkily re-cut with voxpops from The Saturdays and Joey Essex, each of whom have to be repeatedly told by the interviewer that London actually has more than one airport.

7.30pm

Baron Haussman's Hairdressers On T'High Street

Time-travel soap. The leading French architect and civic planner of the 1800s finds himself back from the dead and more confusingly still, in Burnley, Lancashire, in 2011. Despite barely being able to make himself understood by the townsfolk Baron Haussmann inexplicably decides the only thing to do is to open a hairdressers.

8pm

The Genius Of Botticelli

Presented by Jenny Frost and POD.

8.30pm

Snog Marry Avoid

Presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon. This week's episode comes live from the nave of Ely Cathedral.

9pm

FILM: Hoppipolla

Noirish Icelandic crime drama. In Icelandic, shown without subtitles. Detective Inspector Hoppipolla has to solve a murder involving elves, rotten shark meat and Yoko Ono (Includes Lee Nelson's Well Good Show, transmitted in three ten minute segments during the film at 9.40pm, 10.10pm and 10.35pm).

11pm

Pissed Review

Live from The Fox pub on Kingsland Road, East London. Kirsty Wark delicately puffs on a crack pipe while three invited guests from the world of culture debate the big topics of the week in the arts, plus the latest theatre and gallery openings. While pissed. Martha Kearney gets the beers and roast chicken crisps in.