The trust under Sir Michael Lyons has already written to Mark Thompson setting out its view that a salami-slicing approach to the required cost savings is not in the broader interests of licence payers.
I think we are still trying to understand all that and I think that fits under the broader topic of social licence and what bringing in automation to an area does to that region as a whole, which we don't quite know yet".
"There is a broad agreement that the licence fee should be reformed in some way to make sure everyone's paying equally for it and I'll go along with that," he said, before defending the universal fee.
The report is understood to explore three broad options: another flat licence fee deal from 2017; a funding deal linked to inflation combined with better use of commercial assets; and some form of John Lewis-style mutualisation (although at the retailer it is the employees that own the business, rather than the customers).
Tony Hall, the BBC director general, said on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that there was "broad agreement" that the licence fee model of funding the corporation could be reformed but that it had at least "10 years of life in it".
It said that a "broad" test that an export licence should not be issued if there was "concern" the equipment could be used for internal repression had been dropped from the latest set of government guidelines issued earlier this year, and only the "narrow" test that there had to be a "clear risk" of repression remained.
But the broader long-term interests of the BBC and licence payers are also at stake.
"The government is giving consideration to further reductions in broadcasting licence fees as part of a broader package of reforms including the pricing of broadcasting spectrum," Fifield's spokesman said.
If the BBC ignores the next generation it does so at its long-term peril.' The great challenge for the corporation has been attracting a new generation of licence fee payers while retaining its broad appeal.
But being a public service broadcaster also means understanding what the public wants us to provide - a broad, popular, mainstream offering that makes people feel their licence fee has been well spent.
"It is beyond comprehension for the Home Office to think that this gives them licence to carry on regardless with a much broader bill that has been demonstrated as unworkable and dangerous by experts, business groups and the wider public.
