The project might have a chance now that the architect of the MS-DRM iPlayer disaster, Ashley Highfield, has cashed in his chips and left to work at Microsoft.

Given that they're also rather a major ISP, you'd think that they'd be mentioned too.

Or, maybe El Reg has just fallen out with Virgin, as seems to be the case with Apple.

Great idea - and a perfect time to unify the ways broadcasters earn their revenues.

For decades the independent providers have been pbliged to earn their keep by

selling advertising - which in turn means providing content that attracts advertisers.

The BBC however continues to be given "free" money. This is not only archaic but is

obviously open to blatant abuse, the BBC demonstrates their lack of respect for this

public money , which incidentally is acquired by using rather doubtful methods that

some people might think are too close to extortion!

We cannot opt-out of receiving BBC material, so the only alternative is to require the

Beeb to resort to advertising.

Please do not give us the usual guff about how wonderful it is not to have commercials

- we have all had long enough to adjust to this by now - so get over it!

Seeing as Feck has been ruled inoffensive, I feel justified in using it. Christ on a bike, have you actually tried watching television in countries without a BBC equivalent?

Are you actually saying that given a free choice, you'd actually not pay your licence fee, but actually prefer a combination of Sky/ITV/endless channels of rubbish??

In which case I suggest that your taste is so bad that your opinion cannot be trusted. Well, either that or you've got a huge Tory-boy attachment to dimantling anything that smacks of public service, rather than the freedom of the markets, and to hell with throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Why? I like the BBC as it is, I don't want it to change.

Incidentally, the license fee is not 'paying for the BBC'. It is a license to watch TV. The fact that the BBC, a fantastic public service, is payed for from this money, is irrelevant.

If you do not want to pay it, do what my mate has just done: Stop watching broadcast TV. Buy your films/series etc on DVD and watch them. Go to the sporting events you want to see. Go to the cinema.

Hasn't anybody told them this does not happen?

I pay the license fee and enjoy the ad free television and radio services. Five bored minutes in a hotel room with what passes for broadcast entertainment abroad convinces me we are doing something right in the UK and should not blindly follow the ad supported model into tedious banality.

Feck off indeed.

There is lots to be said for the inequality of the easy prosecution of the license fee of 1,000s of avoiders versus the less than 100 people prosecuted for avoiding tax. Cases less than £10,000 are not even investigated.

Living in a country without a quality broadcaster like the BBC, I feel that the British Public badly underestimate the importance of the BBC.

As an institution it is that rare thing: a trusted conglomerate and as such it allows Britain to have influence where it would otherwise have none.

Unfortunately, though, it needs to be funded from somewhere, and to me it make sense to do it through a license fee which means that the revenue raised cannot be channeled by politicians into their own pet projects. Nor can the ruling party of the day force it to compromise by injudicious control of the purse strings.

I wish to crash the feck-off party. I can't decide whether you are a paid lackey, a cunning devil's advocate, or are just incredibly stupid. Which one is not important, what you say is still complete drivel.

There is nothing in this story which has ANY relevance to broadcast TV, so your derisory comments are totally off topic. However, even if they were on topic...

"For decades the independent providers have been obliged to earn their keep by selling advertising - which in turn means providing content that attracts advertisers."

This is exactly why commercial TV is such a pile of fetid tripe. When placing ads, advertisers insist on content that appeals to their target market. The people most susceptible to advertising, particularly TV advertising, are generally in the unthinking group who watch "I'm a D-list Celebrity, Get Me Free Publicity" type of programme, so that is the type of tedious content spewed up ad nauseam by commercial channels.

This leaves those of us who prefer thought provoking, stimulating entertainment with sod all to watch. Because standards are falling, discerning viewers are abandoning TV, so there is an ever smaller audience for quality programmes, making it even less likely to be economically viable for advertisers to support.

With the BBC's charter, although TV standards are still dreadful, the BBC continues to set the standard by which all other broadcasters' output may be judged. Without that benchmark, you can be sure that standards would plummet even further to match the tawdry output shown in other parts of the world.

Paris, because like TV standards, she keeps going down.