BBC offers to pay for World Service to avoid licence fee raid

How this is a real turn up for the books and clearly shows if nothing else that the BBC is running scared that the government will start to eat away at its funding.

Dan Sabbagh has written about this in The Guardian.....

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, is prepared to meet some or all of the £300m annual costs of running the World Service, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a £556m raid on its finances to fund the cost of free TV licences for the over-75s, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal. Embroiled in crisis talks over BBC financing in the hours before the government's comprehensive spending review is agreed, the corporation's negotiators have been told that ministers are also considering whether to force the BBC to meet the costs of the World Service, which is currently paid for by the Foreign Office. That would be an alternative to making the BBC pay out £556m to fund the costs of free television licences for anywhere home to an elderly person – a bill that may force existing television and radio budgets to be slashed.

To read the rest of this article go to the Media Guardian web site.