How BBC could stop this power trio from slicing up licence fee

The reality is therefore cloaked because, as we all know, it is not a TV licence. That is an outdated euphemism. We pay a BBC licence. ITV and the rest of the burgeoning commercial TV market don't give a damn whether people pay or not. Their revenue comes from selling advertising.

This is not, however, the beginning of a rant about the TV licence being an unacceptable mandatory tax. Just the reverse. It is a plea for candour in the light of the statement last week by James Purnell, the Culture Secretary, in which he suggested the licence fee could be shared with other broadcasters to pay for public-service programming.

He may have been flying a kite, but his mind did seem to have been made up, since he asked: "Do we think it's sustainable for every penny of the licence fee to go to a single organisation in an industry which now has very many providers?"

That is the language employed by many of those who have long questioned the BBC's right to enjoy the fruits of a fee paid by virtually every householder in Britain. Indeed, it was the central argument advanced by David Elstein, the man who launched Channel 5 and later worked for Sky, when he and I debated Purnell's proposal on radio.

A longstanding critic of the licence fee, he favours the Purnell top-slicing idea because he sees it as the thin end of a wedge that would lead inevitably towards the fee's complete abolition. In his view, the BBC should be funded instead by voluntary donations.

At least Elstein's agenda is overt. What though of Purnell's? Too much can be made of cosy New Labour cabals agreeing policies behind closed doors and I always try to avoid conspiracy theories.

But what are we to make of the relationship between Purnell and two very influential figures: Stephen Carter, the Prime Minister's strategy chief and principal adviser, who was previously chief executive of media regulator Ofcom, and Ed Richards, who succeed Carter at Ofcom and was previously a media adviser to Tony Blair. Richards even helped to draft the Communications Act, which Ofcom was set up to enforce.

Note how the views of Richards and Carter dovetail with Purnell's. In a keynote speech in November, Richards said that the traditional public service broadcasting (PSB) model "is coming under severe pressure", adding: "We need to ensure that the PSBs' financial privilege is not used to foreclose commercial operators and thus prevent the market from delivering. We will need to consider whether new interventions, and funding mechanisms, should be developed in response to the erosion of the old model."

It was Carter, back in 2004 when he was at Ofcom, who floated the idea of a supplementary licence fee to fund a PSB competitor to the BBC. Now comes Purnell's alternative, but very similar, strategy to take money from the licence fee in order to fund public service programmes on commercial channels.

Clearly, Purnell, Richards and Carter are singing from the same hymn sheet, and they are a triumvirate now exceedingly well-placed to turn ambition into reality.

I am convinced that any loss of funding by the BBC would be a step on the road towards its destruction. Despite all its travails and its self-inflicted wounds in recent years, its loss would be incalculable.

So why, you may well wonder, am I asking for the TV licence to be renamed the BBC licence? For the answer, just step into the street with a clipboard and ask 20 people at random whether they wish to see the BBC disappear. Ask them which they trust most, the BBC or the Government. Ask them whether they find paying 37p per day to fund the BBC an iniquitous tax.

I am confident that the answers would all be in the BBC's favour. So my advice to Mark Thompson, the BBC's directorgeneral, is to pressure Purnell into agreeing to rebrand the licence (this Government loves rebranding).

A yearly "BBC licence" would underpin the link between the people and the broadcaster, ensuring that governments in future would think twice before meddling with it.