[ntluser]

The scrapping of the licence fee reminds me of the time when general rates on houses were scrapped. The rates were subdivided so that elements included within the rates were separated out and ratepayers ending up paying more for exactly the same services.

Personally,I'd prefer to keep the licence fee as despite its faults it probably is the cheapest option.If the BBC chooses to split itself up you can bet that the money you pay will be higher.

Though people speak of choice, even NTL or Sky do not give you exactly the channels you want.Instead they craftily include popular channels with non-popular channels so that you have to buy all the packs to get all the channels worth watching or listening to.

You'll never get a situation where you will pay exactly for what you want because people would opt not to have for example,the shopping channels, but funds from those channels allow NTL and Sky to bring you the channels you do want.

I think the BBC would commercially package their channels in such a way that you would still end up getting all the channels but at a cost greater than the licence fee.

The best option in my opinion is to pay the licence fee and watch the best parts of what the BBC offers, because that can be excellent and offer real quality. No channel is perfect but by picking the best from all of them you can have,with the aid of a video recorder (or recorders!!), the best of all worlds and a great night's TV every night into the bargain.