So, the BBC's charter is being reviewed. There's a lot of speculation on what this might mean, but specifically it could well restructure or hit the BBC's income (via UK TV licenses). They're currently doing a consultation, which will of course be ignored and not filled in by many people in order to allow the government to ignore what anyone thinks and do what they wanted to do all along anyway (sorry, cynic mode). There's been speculation that the government is trying to weaken the non-privatised media in the UK as they're widely regarded as having an anti-Conservative bias (which may of course partly be down to the continued fear and speculation that the Conservatives want to privatise them, it's a bit circular).
If you care about this, the BBC consultation stuff is below (as just forwarded to me by a friend of mine and Glaurung's):
https://www.research.net/r/bbconlineconsultationhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/governance/charter_reviewOn a similar note, Channel 4 may be about to be sold off to the private sector, for no particularly obvious reason. It is (and here we risk opening up the last debate thread again) a non-profit corporation (officially state owned so the government can rewrite its charter). It's funded by advertising and works like a commercial company, but all profits are put back into program making and it has a remit to produce some public interest programmes (documentaries, investigative journalism, whatever). The government has issued a slightly shaky denial of these rumours, but given it might sell for a billion the temptation may be too great.
