BBC is worth 40p a day-three cheers

At least according to Mark Thompson writing in this morning's Telegraph.

He is responding to Sir Antony Jay's Centre for Policy Studies think tank and asks

Do the British public really want the corporation to shrink back to the size it was in the early 1950s? And what would British life and culture be like if Sir Antony got his way?

In a plea from the heart,he says that

It's important first to address Jay's presumption that, with a shrunken BBC, the commercial sector would have the cash and the desire to fill the void. How big would that void be?

and its a fair point and at the centre of the debate over the BBC.How will it services be replaced,or will they be replaced.The answer to that is probably not.

Take music. The Albert Hall in August would be in darkness - there would be no BBC Proms, broadcast across television and radio. The Young Musician of the Year would remain undiscovered. Pop fans would be denied the Radio 1 Big Weekend, and Jools Holland on BBC 2. Musicians in the BBC orchestras could be busking on the street.

No doubt its critics will accuse Thompson of a pompous presumption that the BBC supplies a need that nobody else can do but so what.I for one still believe that with all its faults the BBC is good value for money.Maybe the funding structure needs to be looked but it is dificult to see in this multi platform age a better model to replace it