As we’ve seen in the past week, the full cost of providing services that no one asked for, digital radio and television, will fall on the licence-fee payer, with the BBC demanding annual increases of 2.5 per cent above inflation. It wasn’t entirely obvious in the early days of digital promotion that this was something the government was pushing hard for; the BBC case was based largely on how vital it was that broadcasting should become digital, as this was a superior form of broadcasting to the existing analogue signal, and our lives would be immeasurably improved if we all went digital. Does anyone, apart from the BBC, really believe that now?
At the time I argued that the BBC should improve its core programmes, many of which remain abysmal today, and should leave the development of digital to others.
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