Tories did deal with Murdoch over BBC licence fee

The Conservative party abandoned plans to share money from the BBC's licence fee with other broadcasters after being asked to do so by James Murdoch.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8657058/Tories-did-deal-with-Murdoch-over-BBC-licence-fee.html

The claim over the dropping of the "top slicing" policy comes on top of a raft of evidence of the close relationship between David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - whose deputy chief operating officer is his son, James - thrown up by the phone hacking scandal.

(snip)

Early in 2008, the Tories came up with a radical plan to "top slice" the BBC's licence fee, then £3.2 billion a year, and "parcel out" cash to other companies so that Britain had a "plurality of public service broadcasters".

(snip)

Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website, who also writes for The Sunday Telegraph, was told at this time by a senior Tory who was one of the architects of the policy that it was to be abandoned after a request by James Murdoch.

The reason was said to be that Mr Murdoch wanted to preserve the effective duopoly between the BBC and Sky because this suited News Corp.

(end snip)

edited to add link.

While the Murdochs and their media keep up a rhetorical battle against the BBC, they know that success at the BBC doesn't directly take advertising revenue from News Corp. But successful programmes on ITV, Channel 4 or Channel 5 can do. So if those get any kind of subsidy for their public service programmes, it strengthens the companies, and allows them to use more money to spend on 'big ticket' programmes attractive to audiences and advertisers.

If one or more of those companies failed, it would be to the Murdochs' advantage. And they can then fall back on the "BBC is publicly subsidised" argument once they've got a greater share. Remember, Murdoch has tried to get a stake in ITV and Channel 5 over the past decade (and Channel 4 isn't a publicly traded company, but I bet he'd have tried if he could), but competition rulings stopped him - just.