Itchy feet ?

The Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Roger Mosey, has been active with advice for his previous employer, the BBC, in public prints recently. In the FT, he says the BBC is having "the wrong conversation" with licence-fee payers about what to do next about free licences for the over-75s.

He suggests that, if the BBC is allowed to claw back some funding by changing the rules, it shouldn't all necessarily, be spent on BBC output.

"The solution, if the BBC does win the argument on the concession, may be to widen the debate about how UK public service broadcasting is funded. The BBC always reaches for the smelling salts at the idea of “top-slicing” (in which a proportion of the licence fee is sliced off for other providers), but it has happened already: the corporation has paid for the rollout of rural broadband, and it has contributed £15m to the unwise project for local television. Why, for instance, should not some of the cash released from the licence fee concession go to news organisations that share a commitment to truth and accuracy but may provide alternative agendas and viewpoints?

So if we really must have a big conversation: let it range freely. In this diverse and digital age, public service can no longer be defined by the BBC alone."

Roger is now five years into his tenure at Selwyn. Mischievous wiseacres have suggested this could be a pitch for a nice little commission of enquiry about public service broadcasting, or perhaps a  marker for the attention of ministers preparing a succession plan for the current BBC chair, the entirely-unnoticeable Sir David Clementi.