Future vision for the BBC under a Tory government

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is interviewed by the Sunday Times this morning and gives a fair indication of what a future Tory government may do to the BBC.

He told the paper that
the public broadcaster could be dramatically slimmed down under a Tory government and

warned that the BBC’s bureaucratic waste had become an “absolute nightmare”.

Hunt said that it had been “obscene” of the BBC to demand an inflation-busting licence fee increase despite the squeeze on family incomes. “The BBC should have waived its increase this year,” said Hunt. “Why did it have a £68m inflationary rise when there is no inflation?”

He was very sceptical of the corporation's niche channels with BBC Three and BBC Four, as well as digital radio stations such as 1Xtra, 6 Music and Radio 7 coming under particualr scrutiny.

The BBC needs to make a better case for investment in some of its new digital channels which have very low audiences but do cost a lot of money.