Leading galleries and theatres could produce their own television programmes, under a plan for broadcasting that envisages the end of the licence fee.

According to the influential broadcasting executive Peter Bazalgette, Channel 4 should be privatised, alongside the BBC’s commercial wing, to fund a new broadband arts network.

The former head of Endemol, Mr Bazalgette brought Big Brotherto Britain and devised formats such as Ready Steady Cook and Changing Rooms. In a speech to the Royal Television Society last night, he argued that public service programming would wither unless regulators took radical action.

Mr Bazalgette’s recommendations will be considered by Ofcom, which has promised action to protect public service broadcasting in the face of declining advertising revenues.

Mr Bazalgette said that the success of the BBC iPlayer, which in three months has been used by two million people to download programmes, raised fresh doubts about the licence fee. “Isn’t the BBC’s funding model based on taxing television ownership?” he asked. “If more and more people are to timeshift the shows and watch them on their laptops, why have a TV – and why, therefore, pay the licence fee?”

Direct support from Government could replace the £3 billion licence fee while BBC Worldwide, the wing that sells DVDs and programme rights, could be privatised, raising an estimated £1.5 billion, he suggested.

The sell-off of Channel 4 could raise £1 billion, although its public service obligations would have to be enshrined in the deal. Mr Bazalgette, a former Channel 4 board member, said: “ Channel 4 News, 30 Dispatches a year . . . these could all be made conditions for the new owners. There are several buyers out there who are interested in signing up to this proposition.”

ITV and Five should be released from all their public service broadcasting obligations, such as news and regional programming. From 2012 they would be charged for using the spectrum. ITV and Five would continue to produce news and documentaries voluntarily because they are “good for their brands and ratings”.

Mr Bazalgette recommended using the money raised to create a broadband digital arts and culture network to provide competition to the BBC. He said: “I am proposing a public service distribution platform and search engine. Let’s call it . . . Boggle. Boggle would link the online offerings of museums, galleries, theatre companies, opera houses and concert halls.

“Why shouldn’t Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre commission and distribute video drama? Why shouldn’t Nicholas Serota at the Tate make art programmes? Why shouldn’t the V&A do fashion and the Design Museum do makeovers?”

He told his audience of executives that they represented “a generation of regulation junkies who seem to like nothing better than public money and bureaucratic control”.

Now just see here

2m people have downloaded programmes from BBC iPlayer within three months
£3bn direct support from the Government would replace revenue from licence fee
£1.5bn could be raised from privatising BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial wing that sells DVDs and programme rights
£1bn could be raised from selling off Channel 4

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