BBC licence Fee....should be put on death row...

As a member of the Culture, Media and Sports select committee one of the annual delights is to have Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC give evidence on their annual report.

Mark is a genial sort but barely hides his inability to understand from which planet my questions come from. This does not stop me.

One line of questioning was that as the iPlayer grows fewer people will be accessing television from their telly and will watch it online and online is not deemed broadcasting and therefore you don't need to pay the £139.50 to watch it....so lets get rid of the licence.

The out of datedness of the current ruthless regime has been the subject of much attention by Anthony Jay (a former BBC editor) and Jeff Randall (a journalist who refuses to be tied to the BBC liberal orthodoxy). Both feel that the BBC is living in the era when "auntie" ruled the roost and was the only show in town. Jay argues that the BBC should reduce itself to one radio and one TV channel and stop competing with the commercial sector.

It is quite wrong for the BBC to ever use a tax extorted from the public to put the commercial sector out of business or undercut or duplicate what is already on offer. What are they doing buying the lonely planet guide ...it is a mystery to me. If they are flush with money then reduce the licence fee.

My other line of argument is that people have a right to know exactly how the jacuzzi of cash is being spent. If Paxo is on £800,000 or Jonathan Ross is on £18m over three years surely we have the right to know. We know how much the Speaker's wife spent on taxis because it was on the BBC news, so don't we have a right to know how much is showered on John Humphrys via the old black cabs (or silver Mercedes more like?).

The public interest deems that they need to know that Brown earns £189,000 and it even deems we should know that Mark Thompson is on a package which is £816,000 (yes, you read that right - Mark even forewent a bonus which could have added another £64,000 to his salary).

The main point is surely that the BBC, which is responsible for many F.O.I. requests themselves, should be more upfront and open about how much of our taxes they are spending on the shining stars and lesser sparklers who are on the receiving end of our largesse.

When the TV licence dies, so will my requests for information.....so let's do everyone a favour....let's kill off both!