But it's not just entertainment, is it? It performs educational services, community services. Why do you think all the commercial TV stations abandoned local news programming as soon they were no longer mandated to provide it by the terms of their license?
Then the licence fee should be halved and the BBC should be just that. Educational and informative broadcasting. No need for soap operas or game shows or drama or any of the other expensive "light entertainment" type shows with celebrity hosts that commercial television has in abundance.
They have half the money but dont have to compete for ratings, as they seem compelled to do, and the so called public service end of the BBC could be 20 times better than it is now. But no, we still need to afford Davina to front "So you think you can dance"
Or in other words, drop BBC1.
The reason there's so much light ent on nowadays is because it costs peanuts but it still looks sparkly enough to draw in the channel-flicking masses. And of course the reason Auntie does it is because everyone else does, and she's caught between those who want her to stay competitive with the commercial channels (in order to provide licence fee value for money) and those who think she should be well out. Like when your girlfriend asks if her arse is fat and you take too long to answer, the Beeb's in trouble either way.
Well, if ITV ends up receiving a chunk of the license fee to shore up dwindling ad revenues, why not just call it BBC5? At the same time, why shouldn't entertainment be part of a public service remit?
ITV aren't after a chunk of licence fee for ad revenue purposes, they're doing fine (he said, sucking up to his corporate masters. Please don't fire me for posting on here at work!). What they want is money to fulfil their regional news obligations required by their licence (which are something of an anachronism in the modern day, bearing in mind that the added worth of ITV's expensive terrestrial licence grows smaller each day (that wasn't corporate sucking up, I really think that)).
Also, entertainment is part of the BBC's remit; Lord Reith's "inform, educate and entertain" remains their central tenet.
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