CHEEK BY JOWELL or TESSA’S SECRET TELLY TAX

26-06-2007

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell was at the ICC in Birmingham last night talking up Britain’s Olympic bid but so far she’s avoided questions on another drain on the public purse - her secret telly tax.

In a little noticed speech last week at the Royal Television society, Jowell announced that £14 million of the BBC’s TV license fee will be given to cash-strapped Channel 4 to help with “digital switchover”.

This is the ruse by which millions of hard-up British people will be forced to upgrade their telly equipment - whether they want to or not - so that the government can switch off (and then sell off) the analogue spectrum.

What’s questionable is whether Jowell is legally entitled to do this.

The prospect of diverting some of the BBC’s money was raised in the 2005 Broadcasting White Paper, and when she announced the Corporation’s settlement earlier this year.

But has parliament given its sanction to this unprecedented use of the license fee? Surely it requires primary legislation to force the people of Britain to pay a tax to any other broadcaster?

And what does the BBC make of it? It’s just lost £14 million of a settlement the Director General Mark Thompson called “disappointing”, so why no protests.

Many feel that senior management lost its “cojones” with the departure of Greg Dyke after the Hutton Inquiry, so here’s a chance for them to prove that they aren’t government stooges but are willing to stand up for themselves.

Don’t hold your breath.

It also opens up the question of whether the BBC can any longer expect to have a monopoly of taxpayers’ cash for public service broadcasting - and whether Channel 4 is a deserving alternative recipient.

Birmingham Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming commented: “I have serious doubts about whether we should pay our licence fee so that we can watch ‘Big Brother’.

“We do need to work out what we are doing with public service broadcasting in the digital age where a lot of viewers are moving to the internet.

“For example, I think The Stirrer is a better example of public service narrrowcasting than Graham Norton’s chat show.”