Thommo; "We thought of it"

The "48-hour" deal to fix the licence fee for six years was the BBC's idea, says Mark Thompson.  He told the Voice of the Listener and Viewer conference in London last night that the deal was actually worked out over nine days. "A comprehensive settlement was our idea", and better than "walking away from the table".


He said the strategy had outmanoeuvred the BBC's opponents, who were gearing up for the traditional "smaller BBC" campaign that would have been afforded by a licence fee debate in 2011.

Thommo also offered some hope for services at Bush House, where the impact of 16% cuts is expected to be severe. "For the next three years, the World Service will continue to be funded by the Government. The cuts it faces as part of the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review will mean a significant reduction in services as well as job losses. There is no getting away from this fact. But when the licence fee funding begins in 2014, it is our intention, subject to approval from the BBC Trust, to increase investment in the World Service again and hold it at a higher level until the end of the Charter period".  It depends a bit when "again" comes into play...but Thommo says the future is even better: "...transferring both the World Service and BBC Monitoring to licence fee funding means that, after decades in which parts of the BBC have been in scope for Government spending reviews, the BBC should never again have to get involved in a CSR."

The DG also repeated that there would be no new calls on the licence fee; one hopes that line holds true - there is still the big question of who pays for the extra DAB transmitters clearly needed to make it an effective UK service, particularly along motorways.

Full speech now available here