Christmas yet to come

Trembling Beeboids are half-expecting an announcement of a new chairman before Christmas, and the hot money is still on former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp. 

Mr Sharp has been on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies since 2005. The Centre has produced two papers on BBC funding since then, both written by former Sky public affairs director Martin Lejeune.

"The licence fee should be abolished and the BBC should instead be directly-funded by the government, in exactly the same way as the Arts Council or the NHS. The remit of the BBC should be simply and clearly defined as: ‘The task of the BBC is to produce audio-visual (including digital) news and other content which is distinctively different from that which the market provides, but which is important to the UK’s social, political and cultural wellbeing.’"

September 2016

"The interests of the consumer are being met by non-regulated providers. A decline in state intervention is a necessary, desirable and inevitable consequence." 

March 2009