The head of the BBC Trust doesn't want any of that licence fee money going to Channel 4. Oh no. He wants it all for the Beeb. And to be fair, if you're going to start insisting the BBC actually passes on money made from charitable phone ins to charity, well, they can't be having any more of their licence fee billions being spent anywhere else, can they?
Speaking to the Royal Society Of Arts, Micheal Lyons said that making Channel 4 a licence recipient risked turning it into BBC 5, and that a licence fee funded supplement would "weaken rather than cure the patient". He said: "Has Channel 4's audience been properly consulted about the risks such an arrangement might entail? Put bluntly, the question is this. Who gains if the effect of well-meaning regulatory intervention is to turn Channel 4 into BBC Five? The debate about the future of public service broadcasting in the UK must be about much broader issues than the future of Channel 4".
As much previously reported, giving the publicly owned Channel 4 a subsidy from the licence fee is one proposal that has been put forward to solve the commercial channel's increasing struggle to fund its public service activity through advertising and sponsorship.