Sir, It’s interesting that even in the face of the current funding review the BBC continues to show no sign of reining in its financial incontinence.
After the revelations of the latest Premier League salary deal for Jonathan Ross, the whole football department appears to have decamped to the centre of Berlin; the same effect could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost by using a studio in London with pictures of the Brandenburg Gate and German Parliament building stuck on the wall behind the assembled pundits.
The Government should bite the bullet now and tell the BBC that this agreement on the licence fee will be the last. Over an interim period of the next ten years, the anachronistic licence fee should be phased out as the analog signals are switched off; all commercial parts of the corporation should be privatised or sold and funded through advertising or subscription.
Funding of the public service portions remaining would be taken care of by the proceeds of the sale of the broadcast spectrum freed up by the switch from analog to digital transmissions.
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ALEX WATSON
Lytham, Lancs