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"Titans head for battle of breakfast radio," said a headline last week in The Times. Who are those titans? Radio 2's Terry Wogan, it would seem, and his Radio 1 rival Chris Moyles (who is at least of titanic proportions). They are struggling to see who can gain the largest breakfast audience. Sir Terry at present has 8.1 million, while Moyles is closing up with 7.72 million.

According to the Daily Telegraph: "Moyles, 'the self-styled saviour of Radio 1', has made no secret of his desire to overtake Sir Terry in the ratings, and is gaining slowly but surely."

If this is true, he can look for help from a number of allies at the BBC - including one who authorised a costly advertisement for Moyles's show that has been screened at cinemas across the country. If I were Sir Terry I would be mega cheesed off at my rival being promoted in this way.

I saw the advertisement a month ago on a trip to the Magdalen Street Odeon. It seemed to be an astonishing waste of the licence fee, which has traditionally gone on making programmes. Immediately before was a lavish advertisement for a new series of Dr Who adventures. These are among the most popular programmes on television and hardly need promoting in this way.

The Dr Who ads were, I know, the subject of a complaint to Radio 4's Feedback programme. But Jackie Brandreth, the head of brand at the BBC, defended the spending, saying the corporation always spent a small proportion on its "off air" activities and this was an attempt to reach younger audiences. She said: "The cinema is a pilot project to assess whether this is a good medium to talk to these younger audiences."

A BBC spokesman said the cinema project had cost less than £500,000.

Half a million is, of course, regarded as peanuts by the BBC. It's roughly the amount that has just been squandered on the rebranding of the BBC telly news. Did you notice the difference. No, neither did I.

3:19pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

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