The Word on the Street: Dyke v. Liddiment, Airey for ITV? Dyke as Krushchev, the ITV Digital monkey

The spat last week between Greg Dyke and David Liddiment was all down to their genes, according to Lorraine Heggessey. Asked what she thought of the row, the BBC1 controller said: "Men have a different way of behaving from women." Which would all be very well, were it not widely accepted that it was Dyke's right-hand woman, Sally Osman, who came up with the withering BBC response to Liddiment's attack.

¿ As Channel 4 struggles to trim budgets and shrink its ever-expanding wage bill, Heggessey did it no favours at all by revealing in Edinburgh that Graham Norton was the talent she would most like to poach. Poor Mark Thompson. That must have boosted Norton's C4 salary by £100,000.

¿ There is much speculation that Dawn Airey, chief executive of Channel5, may move to ITV to become chief executive there. Never one to miss a chance to stir the pot, Ms Airey received an award at the Edinburgh Television Festival – Channel 5 was judged the best terrestrial station of the year – with the words: "That's a really nice leaving present."

¿ Tim Gardam, director of programmes at Channel 4, turned to the Soviet Union to describe Greg Dyke's more relaxed regime at the BBC, compared with that of his predecessor, John Birt. Speaking at the TV festival, Gardam said: "We now have the Krushchev years, after the Stalin era."

¿ The makers of Spooks, the BBC 1 spy drama, reveal that they pitched it to all the channels without success to begin with. Spies are passé, they were told. Perhaps the events of 11 September made the secret services seem a little more important.

¿ We are proud to reveal ITV Digital Monkey's next job – guest star in the new series of The Office. The little grey puppet has a small but perfectly formed role, propped up on a filing cabinet, in the Ricky Gervais comedy. Sadly. it's not a speaking part.