The BBC: the future?

The excellent Frank Field MP (I am so glad he didn't become Speaker of the Commons, we would have lost the benefit of his extra parliamentary work) has come up with a paper on the future of public service broadcasting. It goes under the title 'Auntie's Dying: long live public sector broadcasting'. You can link to it here.

Field's thesis is that 'Because public service broadcasting is paid for by a poll tax licence fee the BBC feels compelled to spend most of this money in delivering entertainment which by no stretch of the imagination could be thought of as public service broadcasting.'

'Public service broadcasting is too important to be left largely in monopoly hands. Now is the time to free the glory of this idea from BBC shackles.'

His idea is the BBC should be reduced to BBC 2 and 4 and Radio 3 and 4 and the World Service, and that there should be created a new body, The Public Service Broadcasting Corporation which would allow companies - anyone - to bid for finance to make their own programmes, which would go out on any of a variety of formats. The rump of the BBC would exist largely off PSB money (although the World Service gets some from the Foreign Office) but others could be involved in the scheme. An example he gives is that he is a trustee of the 2011 Trust which celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and he would be able to bid for licence fee money to make TV or radio programmes.

I think this an excellent idea, although with so many people now not listening to public service braodcasting I would prefer to turn the licence fee into a trust so people don't have to shell out every month for something they don't want.

But this should be the start of a national debate.