BBC Trust comes under further pressure

[BGonaSTICK]

As the BBC's management and governing body, the BBC Trust, this weekend digested Jeremy Paxman's MacTaggart lecture - in which the Newsnight presenter accused television chiefs of a "catastrophic, collective loss of nerve" over the medium's purpose, fellow BBC journalist John Sweeney said the corporation should scrap one of its digital channels - BBC Three or BBC Four.

Sweeney told the Edinburgh International Television Festival that instead of cutting the BBC's current affairs budget the BBC should shut a digital channel. Panorama reporter Sweeney said: "It would be better to close down BBC Three or BBC Four than cut current affairs again. Stop cutting current affairs. It is bad for the soul."

Sweeney's call follows BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons' remark earlier this year that he could not rule out closing a TV channel as the BBC looked to make major savings following the lower-than-expected licence fee settlement.

Earlier in Edinburgh Paxman said TV chiefs needed to make a "clear, unambiguous statement of ambition" over television's future. His call prompted an immediate response: BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will meet next month to consider a response to the charge that UK television is in crisis.

In his speech Paxman said the BBC had been "comprehensively outmanoeuvred" by the Treasury over the licence fee settlement. The result had been that the BBC was now committed to several projects - such as digital switchover, the move of several departments to Salford, and interactive programming - which competed with its core purpose: making worthwhile programmes.

"Even so, quite how these obligations produce a budget crisis in an organisation with an assured income of £3.5bn is still something of a mystery to me," said Paxman. He said it appeared that the BBC "seems to want to stay in every television and radio channel and to maintain its internet presence, but to do so with fewer resources".

Also at Edinburgh: BBC One was named Channel of the Year while ITV2 was judged Non-Terrestrial Channel of the Year.