Image: Flickr/ salleygreentree
You can still hear the 40-minute programme on the iPlayer. It is an excellent example of good BBC journalism, interweaving phone calls, emails and two professional opinions: Alan Yentob in favour, David Cox against. All credit to producer Olive Clancy and presenter Winifred Robinson. Of course, being on Radio 4, participants tended towards the articulate middle-class for whom the BBC and Radio 4 in particular is catnip. They value radio more highly than television, and do not differentiate between domestic and World Service broadcasts in their estimation.
That you do not need to pay the licence fee to listen to radio did not invalidate the debate. Indeed, one caller from France said he would be happy to subscribe for the BBC to be made available to him. By contrast, another asked why he could not watch non-BBC TV channels without risk of being locked up.
