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By Russ on August 07th, 2003
He’s got a point
He’s got a point
Barry Cox in today’s Guardian says:
In my view, abandoning the licence fee and relying on voluntary subscription would put the BBC on a much healthier footing with the government. Its independence would be clear. The governors would no longer be the regulator – this role would be taken over by Ofcom – and they could operate like the non-executive directors at Channel 4.
As I said in my July 28th post, the BBC’s independence is something of a myth. CNN and Fox News, for all their faults, are independent. The BBC is not. Cox and other free-thinkers are clearly getting to the bottom of something here. If proponents of the license fee system think that content would be adversely affected by a switch to some other form of funding for the BBC, that can be dealt with in the Ofcom-controlled regulatory process.
