The government is about to set out how it wants to change the BBC amid huge tension between the broadcaster and ministers.
The BBC is reportedly furiously lobbying to oppose changes it sees as undermining its independence and compromising its editorial and programming ahead of Thursday, when the Government is expected to announce its White Paper that sets out how it wants to change the corporation.
The White Paper on charter renewal has already prompted outrage.
At Sunday's BAFTA TV awards, Peter Kosminksy, the director and the corporation's acclaimed drama Wolf Hall, used his acceptance speech to warn that the government's plans were "scary stuff".
"It’s not their BBC, it’s your BBC. In many ways our broadcasting - the BBC and also Channel 4, which they’re also trying to eviscerate - is the envy of the world and we should stand up and fight for it," Kosminsky told the audience.
"I think most people would agree that the BBC’s main job is to speak truth to power, to report to the British public without fear or favour.
"It’s a public broadcaster independent of government, not a state broadcaster. All of this is under threat right now.”
Ian Hislop, Private Eye editor and Have I Got News For You captain, said: "The BBC have allowed Have I Got News For You to be rude about governments... and rude about the BBC, which is a privilege you are given with public service broadcasting and not on state television."
The Culture Secretary recently joked that abolishing the BBC was "a tempting prospect".
MP David Lammy called said the Government was "bullying", adding there was "unprecedented bad blood" between them and the BBC.
Here are eight things the White Paper could be about to stop the BBC from doing.
Only recipes linked to recently broadcast shows will remain, the paper said.
The paper quoted a speech by BBC Trust member Richard Ayre, who said the BBC should ditch "the magazine content, the celebrity gossip, the skateboarding ducks, the games and the puzzles to other providers, who frankly can do it just as well, or better”.
He said: "The people who are supposed to safeguard the editorial independence of the BBC – to safeguard it from, among other things, government interference – are going to be appointed by the same government that they are supposed to be protecting the BBC from."