There are two types of commitments in life. Verbal commitments and financial commitments. When governments make verbal commitments what do we judge them by? The money they’re allocating to realise their dreams. When you’re negotiating what do you rely on? Promises or prices?

Here’s a verbal commitment:

Channel Five will offer viewers dedicated slots on its news programmes and will allow them to pitch ideas to programme executives on the internet, the channel’s managing director of content, Lisa Opie, has announced.

…Ms Opie promised viewers “an unprecedented amount of input into the content we produce.”

She promised a “radical relaunch” of Five News that would put citizen journalism at the “vanguard” of bulletins. “We will integrate our news and talk programming across the day and we will be passionate and campaigning on the viewers’ behalf,” she said. [MG]

A figure on the extra investment cash that’s going to deliver this brave new world would help viewers assess Five‘s commitment to those goals.