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The 'Controller of Press & Publicity, Channel 4 ' has a letter in today's Times, castigating me for being plain wrong in my piece yesterday:
Sir, Stephen Pollard (Thunderer, Feb 2) is wrong to imply that Channel 4 programmes are funded from direct taxation. Every pound we invest is earned in competition with the likes of ITV and Sky. We operate a cross-subsidy model, where commercial programmes like Deal or No Deal pay for unprofitable ones like Channel 4 News. Sir, Stephen Pollard (Thunderer, Feb 2) is wrong to imply that Channel 4 programmes are funded from direct taxation. Every pound we invest is earned in competition with the likes of ITV and Sky. We operate a cross-subsidy model, where commercial programmes like Deal or No Deal pay for unprofitable ones like Channel 4 News.
The only problem with his dismissal is that I didn't at any point imply that "Channel 4 programmes are funded from direct taxation". They're not.
The argument is not that that programmes are paid for by the taxpayer now, it's that because the channel can't fund it's output from advertising any more, it wants the taxpayer (ie the licence payer) to step in and bail it out in future. And the fact that the 'Controller of Press & Publicity, Channel 4' (what a lovely Orwellian job title) chooses to invent a straw man with which to attack my argument shows, does it not, the paucity of his defence?