<div dir="ltr"><div id="article-body-blocks">The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/bbc" title="More from the Guardian on BBC">BBC</a>
licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters to promote
"competition, dynamism and innovation", according to the outgoing chair
of media regulator <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/ofcom" title="More from the Guardian on Ofcom">Ofcom</a>.<p>Colette Bowe said she thought some <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/bbc-licence-fee" title="More from the Guardian on BBC licence fee">BBC licence fee</a> funding should be "contestable", with other media companies allowed to bid to make public service broadcasting programming.</p>
<p>"I
am an economist. There is a lot to be said for contestable funding on
competition grounds ... The counter argument is that once you start
stripping away great chunks of funding you weaken the stability [of the
BBC]," Bowe said on Thursday night, at a Royal Television Society all
party parliamentary group dinner <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/17/colette-bowe-confirmed-as-ofcom-chair" title="">marking her departure from Ofcom after five years as chair</a>.</p><p>"I
have got sympathy with the idea that some more of the funding currently
available for public service broadcasting should be contestable.
Because on the whole I am on the side of the people in the sector who
believe that what we need is even more competition and dynamism and
innovation than we have got."</p><p>Bowe added that examples such as the
Labour government's abandoned plan to use licence fee money to fund
local news showed that it was "very, very difficult to see a way to make
[contestable] work" in practice, but this "doesn't mean there is not a
good reason to do it".</p><p>"I think the challenge for the BBC, leaving
aside political will to continue with a hypothecated tax, the challenge
is going to be enforcing the payment for the licence fee," she said, in
the face of technological changes.</p><p>Bowe served as an Ofcom board member for several years before taking over as the media regulator's chair in 2009.</p><p>She is stepping down on 31 March, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/04/dame-patricia-hodgson-favourite-chair-ofcom-bbc" title="">to be replaced by Dame Patricia Hodgson</a>, the former BBC policy director and trustee who is Ofcom deputy chair.</p>
</div><b>Maggie Brown, Friday 14 February 2014 17.50 GMT<br><br></b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/14/ofcom-bbc-licence-fee-shared-other-broadcasters">http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/14/ofcom-bbc-licence-fee-shared-other-broadcasters</a><br>
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