Culture & Sports Secretary Tessa Jowell has told the Financial Times that is “somewhere between unlikely and improbable” that the BBC will lose it right to extort money through its annual TV licence. Funding by means of a licence rather than other taxes costs TV owners £146m each year in enforcement costs, infringes civil liberties and entails harassment of those who do not own a television. It allows the media giant to be free of both market discipline and democratic accountability. The BBC has used this freedom to expand massively at the taxpayers’ expense while neglecting its public service remit and endorsing shoddy journalism.