BBC3's Cohen savages Lily Allen critics

BBC3 controller Danny Cohen has launched a robust attack on critics of Lily Allen and Friends, arguing that the show is exactly in line with the channel's efforts to bring on new talent.

Speaking at Broadcast's Digital Channels Conference last week Cohen said the media has been overly critical of Lily Allen's chat show - at the same time as castigating the BBC for not bringing on enough new talent.

"Sometimes I think, well what do you want, critics? We try and nurture new talent and then people lay into them," he said.

He also suggested that part of the reason for media's slating of Allen could be sexism. "I think people have been tough on Lily. She's incredibly talented and charismatic, and I tend to agree with one or two critics who have suggested that she might have not had the same level of criticism if it had been a man presenting."

However, Cohen indicated he would resist media pressure to axe new talent without giving them time to develop. "If we [adopt] such a media-reactive culture, we're in real danger of not developing new talent," he said.

He also used the platform to respond to suggestions by senior BBC journalists such as John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman that BBC3 should be scrapped to save funds - describing their views as "bizarre" and "solipsistic".

"Sometimes in the BBC people take the approach 'if it doesn't work for me it doesn't matter'. That's quite a solipsistic view… It's like saying: 'You're 20, you pay your licence but fuck you. You don't deserve anything from it'."