How the BBC may benefit from the recession.

One effect of the recession may be to tighten the BBC's grip on public service broadcasting.

That is according to Philip Stephen's who writes in the FT.

As the recession wreaks havoc on the finances of ITV and other big commercial broadcasters, the licence-fee-cushioned BBC is set fair to secure a monopoly over public service broadcasting.

What the downturn will create is a concentration of service propped up by the move to digital platforms and the need to maintain a state funded quality news service.

Interesting though he talks of Mark Thompson's trick

which has been subtly to recast the licence fee bargain. The tax, he has argued, is justified not so much by quality of programming but by the BBC’s “reach” into every household in the land. What the corporation has aimed for, in other words, has been ubiquity ahead of quality.