BBC should privatise Radios 1 and 2, says Richard Eyre

Ex-commercial radio man wants BBC Radios 1 and 2 to be privatised, which is a rather strange assertion to make on the face of it unless he's signing a death wish for most of the rest of the commercial radio industry. Unless of course you happen to be the new proud owner of Radio 1 and/or Radio 2.

I don't have any statistics to back this up, but suspect that radio is still by far the best way of reaching young people, so if Chris Moyles makes the licence fee worthwhile for under-25s then so be it. A very worthwhile return given the modest budget compared with, say, running BBC One.

And a far better use of modest resources then splurging millions on a flash website that may tend to get overlooked in preference to Bebo and Facebook.

The BBC still hasn't been crippled to the point when it has to give up a major service. Mark Thompson did HM Government a favour by providing a modest amount to help the digital TV switchover, but it's still basically the BBC's money at the end of the day unless Ofcom and the Government decide otherwise.

And that hasn't happened yet.