Quality counts

The reason for the BBC's comparative strength in a tight, competitive market, however, is not so much its commercial acumen as the fact that it is sustained by an annual 3.6bn tax raid on households with TV sets, namely the licence fee.

The result has been a growing tension between the Corporation's desire to act as a successful commercial company and the uncomfortable reality that it is a public broadcaster which is duty bound to deliver those services and programmes that its rivals find unprofitable.

The plans announced by the BBC yesterday represent merely its latest attempt to square this particular circle. Redirecting 600m-a-year towards higher quality content will, the Corporation believes, represent better value for licence payers and help the BBC to fulfil its public-service remit.

Quite how this will be achieved by scrapping the 6 Music digital radio station is unclear, however, considering that its adventurous music policy already emphasises quality over commercialism. And, if digital radio is proving so unpopular, what does that say about plans to switch off analogue radio signals entirely within the next five years? Yesterday's report does offer some levelling of the playing field for the BBC's commercial rivals.

However, it fails to answer the fundamental question. For, while its high salaries for top stars and senior management is justly unpopular with licence payers, it is other spending, such as the 14m on taxis revealed last year, which illustrate how overblown and wasteful the BBC has become. Until this is addressed, householders will continue to wonder just when they will receive value for money in return for their compulsory financing of the BBC.