THE Tory shadow broadcasting minister has proposed that the BBC should be forced to sell Radio 1 and has threatened to freeze the licence fee.

Ed Vaizey said the Conservatives, if they win power, would insist that the corporation came clean over the salaries it paid its top stars.

The moves are intended to cut the BBC down to size. The Tories believe that its huge publicly funded budget and reach are damaging commercial broadcasters.

Vaizey, the party’s spokesman on media and arts, said he wanted to see Radio 1’s licence put up for auction.

He said the corporation was even more dominant than its commercial rivals in radio compared with television, pointing to the fact that it held four out of five national FM licences. The only exception is Classic FM.

“There is an unfair disparity,” said Vaizey in an interview with The Sunday Times. The sale of Radio 1 would help to alleviate the imbalance. Industry experts believe the station’s frequency could be worth at least £100m.

Vaizey also believes the station is failing to reach young listeners. “Radio 1 is not fulfilling its obligation to its audience,” he said. “Its median age is those in their thirties when it should aim much more at teenagers and [those in] their twenties. There is then a good argument for the BBC to be rid of Radio 1 and give the commercial sector a chance to use the frequency.”

Tory proposals to force the BBC to publish the salaries of all those earning more than £100,000, including presenters and executives, are already being resisted.

Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said presenters such as Jonathan Ross, whose three-year contract is reportedly worth £18m, are “entitled to privacy unless they are actually making decisions about public money”.

The Tories will allow the current licence fee deal to run its course until 2016, but Vaizey said the £3.4 billion it annually generated for the BBC was “huge” compared with the income available to commercial rivals.

“We reserve the right to freeze it and will also revisit its terms and conditions in 2011 — the midway period of its current 10-year deal,” he said.

Last night a BBC spokesman said: “In policy discussions with any government, what’s most important is safeguarding our independence and guaranteeing all audiences high-quality programmes.”

Vaizey said his party would also scrap the ban on product placement on commercial channels and increase the amount of time available for adverts each hour. Product placement, where a company pays for its products to appear in a programme, could raise an extra £70m for ITV alone, according to Vaizey.

The Tories are also unlikely to back a joint venture between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm. Such a move has been mooted by ministers after Channel 4 bosses pleaded poverty and threatened to cut programming if it did not receive additional funds.

“Channel 4 is actually in quite rude health,” Vaizey said. “It is crying wolf about its finances.”

He said a Conservative government would not only refuse to introduce entrance charges at national museums but supported, in principle, an extension of free entry to smaller institutions.

“We would not allow the national museums, which now have free entry, to charge even if they wanted to. It’s a proven success and an iconic policy which is now part of our cultural landscape,” he said.

Although the arts world has traditionally been supportive of Labour, Vaizey firmly sought to distance the Tories from the unpopularity they suffered from the sector when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

He said politicians of all hues had erroneously tended not to consider the arts as a priority policy area. “They see it as a luxury,” he said. “In fact, the arts add to the quality of our country and our lives.”

Although Vaizey is shadow minister responsible for broadcasting, a Tory spokesman said last night that the sale of Radio 1 was not party policy.

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