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BBC faces tough questions in UK government Charter Review

Every ten years, the BBC is given a new Royal Charter which shapes its work as a public service broadcaster. The current Charter runs until the end of 2016 and in preparation, the government has published a consultation with some of its most pressing concerns. Most of them are posed as questions -- the idea being that they'll provoke discussion from the public -- but they also hint at how the BBC could soon be changed against its will.

One of the biggest areas for debate is funding. The licence fee has been under pressure for some time and in its Green Paper, the government is proposing three alternatives. One is a reformed licence fee capable of fixing the "iPlayer loophole" -- where some people watch TV exclusively on-demand and read BBC News online for free. The second is a universal household levy, which would charge every property a fee regardless of whether they consume BBC content. The third option is a mixture of subscription and public funding. In this scenario, the broadcaster would be funded by the taxpayer for a "core service," followed by subscription fees for premium programming and iPlayer access.

Other questions in the paper include whether the BBC is doing too much and crowding out commercial competitors. The company offers a wealth of TV channels and radio stations, as well as an online news service, so the government is asking whether its scope should be pared back. It cites a BBC Trust report which found an overlap in the audiences of Radio 1 and Radio 2. "Given the vast choice that audiences now have there is an argument that the BBC might become more focused on a narrower, core set of services," it reads.

The BBC disagrees. It's criticising the government today for leaning toward a "much diminished, less popular BBC" and says policymakers should be listening to the public. Nothing has been decided yet, but clearly a narrative is starting to form -- it wasn't so long ago that the UK's Culture, Media and Sport Committee was predicting the end of the licence fee too. The next Royal Charter will shape the BBC's work for a decade, so we're expecting a few more of these heated, but civil exchanges in the coming months.

[Image Credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images]