Licence Fee Fixed

The news that the BBC licence fee has been agreed will no doubt spark off the debate over whether Britain needs a public funded broadcasting organisation.

From Media Independent this morning

"The BBC licence fee will rise by 3 per cent in each of the next two years, the Government will announce today. BBC director-general Mark Thompson said the below-inflation increase, that will be outlined in full by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, was "a real disappointment."
The BBC's borrowing limit will also be restricted to £230m, rather than the £400m it had requested.
Unions warned that such a deal would lead to heavy job losses and would seriously hit programmes.
The £131.50 fee will rise to a maximum of £151 by 2012. After the first two rises of 3 per cent, the increases will slow to 2 per cent during the following three years, and between 0 per cent and 2 per cent in the final year, breaking the historic link between the rise in licence fee with inflation."

Listening to an interview on the Today programme this morning,one of the arguments being put forward was that specialised broadcatsing such as BBC2 AND Radio's three and four should be funded by the people that wish to use them in the same way that the national trust is funded.

I notice that there are curently 667 comments on BBC online refering to the fee settlement.The few that I have just scanned thru seem to suggest the old arguments that the fee is simply a tax and that it is being spent on inflated salaries of stars sucha s Jonathon Ross.