Commercial broadcasters falter over BBC review
The commercial television and radio sector might like to think that there's a united opposition to the BBC doing whatever it wants - or to the BBC full stop, for that matter - but ITV and BSkyB are arguably just as divided on the issue as they are united, therefore they may collectively just end up with a vague "don't tread on us" statement.
ITV doesn't want a weak BBC since although the BBC is in itself formidable opposition to its services, its very existence also keeps in check the strength of its commercial rivals. And the licence fee ensures that there's less of an appetite for subscribing to rival commercial services which would in turn mean less people watching ITV channels.
BSkyB by contrast probably wants the BBC blindfolded and thrown off the nearest cliff, since scrapping the licence fee would mean that Sky would attract more subscribers and charge more for existing subscribers as well as eliminating a key opponent in the process, though there would be a danger that a major new (perhaps foreign) commercial opponent would be created as a byproduct.
Other broadcasters like ITN probably lie between these two extremes in their viewpoint, but the conclusion is that the private sector loves to hate the BBC for still being powerful whilst much of the oppostion sinks into its own multichannel morass. But to be really fair the private sector needs to have just as stringent regulation, though BSkyB will probably hate that even more.
