Profit and culture
Sir: Mr Paul Johnson's hyperbolic tirade against the 'left-wing assertions' of Mr Donald Bull (17 October) was entertaining, especially to those who know Mr Bull, but inaccurate. The Writers Guild and the Society of Authors, those frightening organisations of creative people, launched a campaign on their own initiative to support the BBC in its request for a £50 licence fee. Mr Johnson's right-wing assertion that we were prompted by the BBC is quite wrong. Speaking as an uncultured wage-earning and therefore profit-making official of the Society of Authors, a cultured, non-profitmaking organisation, I do not know whether or not profit and culture are mutually exclusive but I do know that there is a great deal more culture on BBC radio than there is on commercial radio. I agree with Mr Johnson that profit means a market and, yes, every time we turn a knob in a commercial television system we are voting with our fingers (if not with our brains). But I am forced to put forward the hideous left-wing assertion that there is no question of voting when we pay higher prices in the shops in order to cover television advertising costs, and this leads me to indulge my neo-marxist views even further and suggest that the disguised cost to the public of commercial television and radio is about twice the price of a £50 licence fee.
Julian Chancellor The Society of Authors, 84 Drayton Gardens, London SW10
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