Profit and culture
Sir: Few would disagree that the BBC needs an increased licence fee. Indeed, both the Chairman and the Director General of the IBA are on record as saying so. But not for the 'reasons' advanced by Messrs Bull (17 October) and Chancellor (Letters, 24 October), which are concerned more with knocking their independent colleagues than with any objective analysis.
Do they really believe that the producers and directors of the independent television companies — many of whom have at one time worked for the BBC — do not have a personal and professional commitment to excellence? In a month when independent television is showing Churchill: The Wilderness Years and Brideshead Revisited while the BBC is showing The Borgias and Fanny by Gaslight do they seriously maintain that the standards set by the BBC are unique?
The myths about advertising are pretty tired too. Surely Mr Chancellor is aware that everything offered to the public (including both plays and films) has, as part of its price, the cost of letting the public know about it? And the elementary economic axiom that advertising = mass production = lower cost unit throws cold water on Mr Chancellor's assertions about the viewer paying more for independent television in the price of goods in the shops.
There are sound arguments for a sensible BBC licence fee and they are more effective than the sneers and innuendos about the IBA advanced by Messrs Bull and Chancellor.
Brian Murphy
1 Woodland Rise, London N I 0
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