Call to scrap BBC digital channels
Sir Antony Jay, the co-writer of TV comedy Yes, Minister, has called for the BBC to be radically slimmed down.
He said it was time for the corporation's digital channels, which include youth-focused BBC3 and highbrow operation BBC4, "to make their excuses and leave".
The annual licence fee, currently £3.2 billion, "will be indefensible in theory and unenforceable in practice" within 10 or 20 years, he said.
Sir Antony, a former BBC editor, said the corporation should be stripped down to a mainstream TV channel, a radio speech channel, and a news department to supply TV and radio.
"Anything beyond that should be up for discussion," he said.
"The massive increase in channels over the past 15 years means that many of the viewers' and listeners' requirements are satisfactorily met elsewhere."
Sir Antony criticised the "endless space-filler programmes" on cookery, gardening and DIY on the BBC. He questioned the need for stations like Radio 3 which "at £45 million a year... costs as much as Radio 1 for a fraction of the audience".
The BBC should fund itself with "more aggressive marketing" of its "treasure house" of programmes, he said.
Sir Antony, who also co-wrote Yes, Prime Minister, made the comments in a report commissioned by the centre-right think tank the Centre for Policy Studies.
He said there was a "strong case for dismantling the BBC" altogether because the broadcaster spent more than £3 billion "every year, most of it on undistinguished programmes, which are indistinguishable from what is available on competitive unsubsidised channels". But there was still a case for retaining a slimmed-down version of the public service broadcaster, he said.