BBC Resists a Move to Give Part of Its License Fee to Other Broadcasters

The British Broadcasting Corp and the Labour government in Britain are disagreeing over a government plan to share some of the broadcaster's £3.6 billion in public financing with its commercial television rivals. The government proposed last month that 3.5 percent, or about £130 million ($212 million), be reallocated from the BBC to other broadcasters to help them pay for children's programming and local news. With advertising revenue shrinking, these companies say, they can no longer afford to broadcast such programming without subsidies. The BBC has mounted a vigorous defense of the current system, prompting the culture minister, Ben Bradshaw, to say Tuesday that the broadcaster's leaders were behaving in a "wrong-headed" and "self-defeating" manner.