With more on this story, Sputnik spoke to Brian Silvester – political commentator and local councillor in this report.
Sputnik: Boris Johnson's new minister for the BBC has fired the starting gun for a Conservative battle with the corporation declaring that the broadcaster needs a major shake-up of its output and news coverage if it is to survive. What do you make of these comments? What do they represent in your eyes?
Brian Silvester: I think the BBC really needs to be changed altogether. I think the license fee should be dropped. I think the BBC should be funded from subscriptions, from advertising, from the sale of their programs to other media outlets. I think that's the way forward and the sooner we get to that position the better.
Sputnik: With this statement from Dowden representing the latest attack against the BBC; is the broadcaster running on borrowed time?
Brian Silvester: I think the Conservative government is saying the right things. I've got some doubt in my mind about what action they will actually take. As I understand it, the BBC license is safe for a few years before it's under review, but I think they should be immediate action.
The BBC are out of control - I think they've got lazy and arrogant; they're biased they clearly left-wing; anti-Trump the anti-Brexit and they seem so unsure about their own listeners that they just broadcast the left-wing elements and don't broadcast to the wider public. I think this government is very good at trying to say the right things but when it comes down to the actual action there's a lot to be desired.
I will reserve judgement until they actually do something about this, that they say that they want the BBC to be more representative of the public, we will see, because the BBC are so out of touch with their viewers and listeners it is untrue.
Sputnik: Can we expect to see reform or changes in the upcoming weeks and months? What should this reform look like in your eyes?
The BBC should be just like any other channel like Sky, like Netflix, like Amazon - they should be just the same and they should depend upon advertising to depend on subscriptions and selling their programs. That's what it should be about. Now to make that change, it can't be done overnight as the BBC would have to be given time but I think the time has come for the government to say enough to the BBC. We're no longer going to have the BBC license fee and set a date in the near future to say that is when it will end.
