Minster: ‘BBC holds back UKTV’
April 19, 2016
The white paper that will set out the future of the BBC will be published in May, according to culture minister Ed Vaizey.
Referring to earlier reports about UKTV he said it was “perfectly appropriate within the white paper process to look at what the BBC does in a quasi-commercial fashion”. The government is considering forcing the BBC to sell off its 50 per cent stake in UKTV.
Vaizey added that there was “a debate to be had on both sides” about how far the licence fee-funded BBC should be allowed to develop its commercial interests. The government should look at whether the BBC’s stake “holds back UKTV growing in terms of finding commercial partners”, he said.