This is taken from the FT:

LEADER COLUMN
The BBC's risky game of space invaders
Published: April 28 2006 03:00

The BBC is invading commercial broadcasters' cyberspace. The public broadcaster said this week that it was going to relaunch its website with more blogs, podcasts and a focus on online communities. These plans sound as though they will overlap with services already operating, intensifying questions about the Beeb's role.

The BBC is right to consider how to contact and capture the millions of younger people who never - or hardly ever - watch television. Failure to do so would be an abdication. But the initiative merits caution, given its place among other expansionist moves. From plans for its commercial arm to create BBC.com, an advertising-supported website outside the UK, to the intention to provide some free video-on-demand for programmes, the BBC's internet ambitions are outpacing its remit as a public broadcaster.

The most immediate concern is that new plans are moving forward under an old system, where responsibilities lie with government ministers and the BBC governors. New arrangements from April next year, although stopping short of completely independent oversight, will at least give Ofcom, the media and telecommunications regulator, the task of assessing the impact on the market of new BBC services. But this will be all too late. By the time Ofcom makes its mind up and presents a view to the new BBC body that will have the final say, some of these services may already have distorted the market. Orders to close down services are a lot harder than preventing them in the first place.

Further ahead there are two broader issues. The first is that the more BBC online services draw on personalised content from its users, the harder it will be to show how different these sites are from those of commercial media companies. The corporation will need to be much more effective in demonstrating its commitment to high-calibre material and public value.

The second relates to funding. The more the BBC's material is available without the need to possess a television set, the more obviously unfair it will become for its funding to come so heavily from those who do still use TV. That is one reason why the current negotiations about the level of the licence fee should be for a five-year period only, rather than any longer. The options for BBC internet charging are far from straightforward. Subscription-based or pay-per-use premium services might be one approach but would sit uneasily beside a continuing licence fee.

The BBC can never be on equal terms with commercial broadcasters. This would be true even if public funding stopped tomorrow, since its archive and brand have been built up with a guaranteed income stream. This has enabled the BBC to take risks commercial broadcasters could not, often to public benefit. Over-reaching digital and internet ambitions put that at risk.