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The Peacock Committee was a review into financing of the
BBC . It was initiated by the
Conservative government of
Margaret Thatcher on 27 March 1985 and reporting on 29 May 1986. The committee was led by Professor
Alan Peacock . The other six members were
Samuel Brittan ,
Judith Chalmers ,
Jeremy Hardie , Professor
Alastair Hetherington ,
Lord Quinton , and Sir Peter Reynolds.
[1]
The government had expected the committee to report that the
television licence fee used to fund the BBC should be scrapped. However, the Peacock Committee favoured retaining the licence fee as they believed it was the 'least worst' option.
[2]
The immediate recommendations of the report
[3] were:
BBC Radio 1 and
BBC Radio 2 should be privatised.
All
television receivers should be built fitted with
encryption decoders.
The television licence fee should be indexed to
inflation and the BBC should become responsible for the collection of the licence fee.
The licence fee should be extended to car radios.
Pensioners dependent on benefits should be exempt from the licence fee.
Not less than 40% of the BBC's and
ITV ’s output should be sourced from independent producers.
The transmission space used by the BBC and ITV overnight should be sold.
ITV franchises should be put out to competitive tender
Channel 4 should be able to sell its own advertising.
Censorship should be phased out.
References