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There is a publication to pay the corporation 's star is sufficient to protect the beleaguered body?

Sir Michael Lyons is a battle-hardened apparatchik who tackled plenty of vested interests during a long career in local government. There is probably no better preparation for life at the BBC. Now the chairman of the BBC Trust must draw on all his experience as a political street fighter as he seeks to save his own job â€" and possibly even the trust itself â€" from the threat of liquidation at the hands of the new government.

On Wednesday evening, that struggle began in earnest as Lyons attempted to use a speech in London to demonstrate the trust is not toothless â€" demanding BBC executives reveal more details about senior managers' pay and stars' salaries.

He also hinted the BBC will not look for a licence fee rise in 2012, when it is next up for renewal, telling an audience of media executives: "We will not seek to maximise the BBC's take from the licence fee. We will seek only what is necessary for the BBC to fulfil its public purposes as set out in the charter." Lyons made all the right noises about the need to avoid "mission creep" at the BBC and curtail some of its commercial activities, statements that will please the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt. But has he done enough to persuade Hunt, who once said publicly that the trust didn't work, to grant a stay of execution?

The answer is a qualified "yes": the trust will survive â€" for now â€" although Lyons seems almost certain to step down in April 2011, when his four-year contract expires. Until then, he faces a difficult 10 months or so as he seeks to balance the demands of a coalition government intent on squeezing the public sector, with BBC executives' instinctive reluctance to cede control of any part of their empire without a fight.

The trust is expected to publish its interim response to the BBC strategy review led by the director general, Mark Thompson, today, and the smart money is on a reprieve for BBC 6 Music, which was earmarked for closure.

David Elstein, who led an independent review of the licence fee in 2005 for the Conservative MP John Whittingdale (then the shadow culture secretary), says: "It is a matter of time before you get the BBC Trust completely separated from the BBC. At the moment it is under two regulators, the trust and Ofcom. There is a battle going on for control. Who sets BBC strategy, who runs it?" Until then, he adds: "The trust will have to push the executive further."

That was Lyons's intention last week. He attacked presenters' salaries, in part, because Hunt has repeatedly criticised the huge sums paid to well-known faces including Graham Norton, Jeremy Paxman and Anne Robinson. But even that attack was blunted by the apparent intervention of BBC managers.

Before Lyons stood up to deliver his speech â€" and after it had been sent to the press â€" the text was altered. Tough talk about revealing salaries was qualified by caveats inserted at the 11th hour. "This does not affect most of those people who are on our screens day in, day out," he said. "It's only the very top where we believe there's a signal need to be clearer about who is paid the most. It is not even a question of divulging the individual salaries."

It was the payment as a hard blow address. She was supposed to be a time when gloves came down as Lyon took the struggle for leadership of BBC, which many in the government feel it is too powerful. In the event, its impact was less, because the Lions pulled his punches.

As he rose to speak, a BBC spokesman reiterated management's opposition to revealing stars' salaries, telling journalists: "We've been consistent in our view that revealing contractual details of BBC talent is problematic for reasons of confidentiality."

Worryingly for Lyons, the episode illustrates an uncomfortable truth about the trust's dual role as both the BBC's regulator and its defender, which is unlikely to go unnoticed by Hunt. He raised the prospect of replacing the trust when in opposition, and giving the task of defending the BBC to the director general, although there was talk of also appointing a full-time deputy chairman who would share the burden.

Political firestorm

In the long term that may still happen, but Hunt realised that ripping up the corporation's royal charter mid-term would prompt a political firestorm.

Attacking the BBC shortly after coming to power would not go down well with the public, whose affection for it remains undiminished. It would lead to a crisis at the corporation, and almost certainly result in Lyons's resignation.

He would like to leave public life, protesting the government 's threat to the independence of s BBC', and commentators are quick to seize on it as evidence that hunting was the next agenda, Rupert Murdoch.

Hodgson began her career in the Conservative Research Department. She would have to overcome the charge of being too sympathetic to the BBC because of her years at the corporation, but she has regulatory experience, having chaired the Independent Television Commission (subsumed by Ofcom). The serial media executive Roger Parry â€" who is also on good terms with leading Tories â€" has been linked with the post too.

Hunt could also pack the trust with his own appointments â€" eight out of 12 trustees are due to step down this year. Although six will be reappointed by the DCMS, two, including vice-chair Chitra Bharucha, will not be. One senior industry source compares that possibility to a US president filling the supreme court with judges who share his aims.

Incentives and sanctions

"Sir Michael has never made enough of the fact that the trust has a different role from the governors," says another industry source. "It needs to be more detached, and then to work out incentives and sanctions to ensure the BBC management behaves differently. It should take note of how Ofcom operates â€" light-touch, but coupled with rigorous investigations, and effective intervention."

Hunt shares that analysis, and that is what he would like the trust to become â€" an arm's length regulator staffed by powerful figures who do not "go native" after fraternising with BBC executives.

Lyons inherited a difficult job as the first person to head an institution many insisted was a fudge to begin with, and that has never won widespread political support. The conviction that the trust was a bad idea is one of the few things the Tories and Lib Dems agreed on in opposition. Even Ben Bradshaw, the last Labour culture secretary, criticised the body his own government created.

The trust was a compromise hammered out in the wake of the Hutton report, when the corporation hoped to maintain the status quo by preserving the old BBC governors. Many powerful figures in Labour wanted to see it replaced by an independent external regulator â€" an "Ofbeeb" that could not be taken hostage by managers. For now, however, Hunt has decided to work within the existing regulatory framework. At a meeting last month, the first between Hunt and Lyons, the culture secretary is believed to have left the chairman in no doubt about the need to speed up the pace of change at the BBC in order to bring it in line with a public sector that is about to suffer swingeing cuts.

Faced with a hostile government demanding the BBC put its house in order, he is likely to face opposition from the corporation's 18,000 staff. The unions have already threatened strike action over plans to freeze the pay of those earning £37,726 or more, and to close the BBC's generous final salary pension scheme.

For Lyons, it is one of the biggest challenges of his career. For the Tories it is simply clever politics: a way of winning the battle with the BBC Trust without even being seen to pick a fight.