The BBC

News that the BBC Internet operation is 48% over budget will not, unfortunately, surprise many people.

It is laxness on the part of the politicians, however, that I blame. Programme makers and news editors should only have an eye to a quality product. Politicians and management should have an eye to not overspending.

What we have is the opposite. The TV schedules are filled with rubbish (OK, not quite as bad as Italy but low quality pap for the most part) because they want to compete with the independents (Why?). And those with the purse strings loosen them in the name of quality.

I would reduce it to one TV channel, The World Service (which I would expand because it is Britain’s window on the world) Radios 3 and 4 and nothing else. The news department would be by far the biggest and feed into the individual units to avoid duplication (we are sending more BBC people to the Olympics than athletes) and have a limited but high quality website..

Every pound spent by the BBC crowds out investment by talented independents. It’s like Old Labour’s nationalised industries and its sell-by date is long past.