Timothy Garton Ash makes this argument on behalf of the BBC:

The BBC is asking for an increase just above inflation, so that by 2013 we would be charged about £150 a year, in today’s money. That’s 41p a day. Are you prepared to pay 41p a day for everything you get from the BBC? I am. Remarkably, an independent survey commissioned by the government has found that most of those asked say they are prepared to pay even more, around £160 a year, when the full range of services which the BBC is mandated to provide under its new 10-year charter is explained to them.

Yet it now seems that the government may tell us that we can’t pay as much as we want to for the BBC…Welcome to the British way of democracy: they takes your money and they makes your choice. [Guardian]

Well, surveys are all very well, but as market researchers know to their cost, people don’t always tell the truth. The best way of testing whether or not people want to pay for a service is to – er – make them pay for it.

Obviously that kind of dangerous, market-type talk might be too much for some. So how about a milder step like parliamentary scrutiny of the entire charter? Then our elected representatives might be able to introduce a level of democratic accountability that goes beyond the current system of executive patronage via the DCMS and then, ultimately the Treasury. If paying more really is what the people want, why not let the democratic process apply the necessary pressure? TGA would probably disagree. He has gone into print before to claim that The BBC is the world’s best broadcaster and must be defended from politicians.

It’s an interesting argument, and one I’d like to see developed into a full theory of the state. Would it go something like – senescent democracies need a vast publicly-funded media organization to nursemaid them? That might be the truth, but if it is then surely TGA should be telling it…