Some of the chief contenders for the two vacancies at the head of the BBC were yesterday given the perfect platform to apply for the jobs.

The industry turned out to a forum on the future of the BBC that appeared to kickstart debate at the start of the two-year charter review process and to allow public discussion of who should run the new-look corporation.

The very public nature of the forum may also have softened criticism.

Mark Thompson, the Channel 4 chief executive who is a candidate to replace Greg Dyke, said the scale of the debate around the current charter renewal pointed to the success of the BBC since the last renewal in 1996. "Ten years ago, the biggest challenge was irrelevancy." Mr Thompson is a former BBC director of television.

Patricia Hodgson, another contender on the same panel, said the corporation had fulfilled its charter role "gloriously". Other panellists tipped for the chairmanship of the BBC included Bob Phillis, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, who called for a greater separation between governance and regulation.

Lord Burns made his first public comments since being appointed as the government's independent adviser on charter renewal. He told the Westminster Media Forum that the entire remit of the corporation was under the microscope. "For my point of view, I don't regard anything as being determined."

Lord Burns expressed surprise at the amount of government scrutiny that the BBC had been subjected to. In the last two years, the government has ordered reviews of the corporation's news channel, its websites and youth programmes.

"We have this whole range of reviews. One hypothesis must be that in some quarters somewhere there is a lack of confidence in the system of governance."

Sharing the same platform, Tessa Jowell denied that the government had a hidden agenda, saying that the government was "still very much in listening mode".

She reiterated her support for a BBC independent of the government. The phrase "strong BBC, independent of government" was used repeatedly during her speech.

She left no one in any doubt, however, that while the licence fee may be the "default position", all other options of funding would be considered "taking into account the rapid changes in technology and consumer behaviour now taking place".

Criticism of the corporation was muted, even from rivals. Richard Freudenstein, chief operating office of BSkyB, said the satellite company "did not have a problem with a strong BBC".

One onlooker suggested that the post-Hutton travails of the BBC had left industry participants mindful of kicking a man when he was down.

However, there was support for some change of the BBC's management. The board of governors, which both oversees and regulates the BBC, has come under sustained fire since the Hutton report criticised its handling of the Gilligan affair.

Bob Phillis said: "Some changes to the governance of the BBC are clearly necessary." He suggested bringing the structure of the board of governors more in line with corporate boards elsewhere with a case to be made for separating governance from regulation.

A white paper next year should complete the charter renewal review process before the current charter expires at the end of 2006.

The process coincides with the public service broadcasting review being conducted by media and telecoms regulator Ofcom. Yesterday's panel on governance and accountability showed some support for regulation by Ofcom, a move that many see as a Trojan horse for the ending of the licence fee.

Ed Richards, the Ofcom senior partner responsible for strategy and market development, said such a decision should be taken by parliament.