The BBC licence fee offers the public best value for money and any move to subscription would result in viewers paying more to receive less, the BBC’s strategy director James Purnell said today in response to a parliamentary report.
The Culture, Media and Select Committee inquiry concludes it is "harder and harder" to justify the licence fee and recommends either a household levy or some element of subscription long-term - although "there is no realistic alternative" to it for the immediate future.
But speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Purnell, the former Culture Secretary, said the fee should be modernised and extended to include watching programmes on catch-up on a computer or tablet which can currently be done without a licence.
But he insisted any major changes would not produce a public benefit.
"We think some kind of universal fee like the licence fee is the right way of funding the BBC.
"Because we all pay the licence fee, we pay less. If you introduced a subscription model for the BBC, the price would go up and there would be fewer programmes."
It would also take away revenues from existing subscription-funded services such as Sky, he added.
John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Culture Select Committee, said there needed to be a rigorous debate and the solutions might depend on the technology.
But the BBC must cut the range of programming to do what it does best. “The BBC has tried for too long to be all things to all people.”
And his committee recommends the abolition of the existing BBC Trust in place of a board with a non-executive chairman as the Trust “remains far too close to the BBC and blurs accountability”. It had failed to prevent “a series of disasters” over issues such as executive pay.
