The BBC’s television output is due for an overhaul announcement at the Edinburgh Television Festival later this month, when Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, is expected to approve the two new digital channels BBC3 and BBC 4, described by some as "Radio 4 with pictures".

Many pundits fear that with television losing out in audience to resurgent radio and the new channels reportedly being more highbrow, we could be in for a further dumbing down of BBC output on the corporation’s other channels.

BBC2 is a particular worry, despite having gained an audience edge over main rival Channel 4. It is thought with the advent of the new "highbrow" channels BBC3 & 4, BBC2 will have to become more populist.

Jane Root, BBC2 Controller, gave her analysis of the channel’s failings in a recent document that described it as "Calvinist, cold and confusing to watch."

Root went on to state that every programme should start with a 30-second summary of its compelling moments and she means business. She intends to introduce the new introductory trailers immediately. In a memo to producers she wrote on the give-away-compelling-moments theme; "You all know what I mean – the confrontation, the arrest, the find, the realisation, whatever is the defining action. I would like to move to this as soon as possible including programmes currently in production."

Root’s complaint is aimed at not losing the channel hoppers in the first few seconds of a programme transmission. As she puts it "Too many of our films are still too elliptical and lateral at their starts. Fine of you are trapped in the cutting room with nowhere to go; less beguiling if you are on the sofa with the remote in your hand an no idea of where it’s all going."

She goes on to emphasise, in colourful fashion, that it is "a pity to chuck good audience away, so let’s not."

As audience size has reached probable maximum, broadcasters are bound to focus on areas like programme junctions and how to keep audience instead of losing them to rivals. Whilst some would argue that Root is right to action on the channel hopping issue, others would say that treating drama as if it was a piece of light entertainment could diminish audience enjoyment of how a drama unfolds.

The less charitable might point out that, given the industry with which the BBC’s promotions department goes about its work, and with the thin plots that many modern dramas have, exposing the compelling moments in a trailer could actually avoid the need to see the drama altogether. As in the cinema, the promotional trailer may actually turn out to be the better product.

Sport and current affairs remain exempt from this. Presumably it is not possible to predict goals, or in the case of the politicians, own goals, in advance of the event.

Despite the misgivings of many BBC programme makers, it is likely that Root will have support for her reforms in high places. Greg Dyke is likely to favour the bite-sized summary approach. The Director General once admitted "I have a fundamental boredom problem. I have the attention span of a peanut."