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THE NUJ is distributing thousands of postcards for people to send to the UK government to protest at a possible attack on the BBC licence fee.

Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw is reported to favour “top slicing” the fee — to give some of it to commercial companies to produce local news.

Unions have proposed alternative ways to fund public service content by commercial broadcasters.

Top slicing, the union says, would cut the budget for the BBC’s output and put public money in the hands of profit-hungry shareholders rather than programme makers.

Research commissioned by the NUJ and BECTU has shown that levies on telecom and internet companies that “aggregate” editorial content — re-broadcasting it without paying — could support commercial news programmes.

Message goes out: hands off the BBC

DOZENS OF broadcasting trade unionists gathered in Westminster in October to lobby MPs over the future of public service broadcasting.

The NUJ and sister union BECTU are calling on the UK government to find a way of funding local news on commercial television without taking money from the BBC licence fee.

Sue Harris, NUJ Broadcasting Organiser, said: “The unions are absolutely committed to supporting regional news on commercial television. But we don’t think the answer is to put the BBC’s budget for public service broadcasting at risk.

“The NUJ doesn’t think the BBC is perfect — like others we have concerns about management decisions, about levels of pay to executives and celebs. But attacking the corporation’s funding won’t help. The government must open its mind to alternatives that would bring in genuinely new money to quality broadcasting.”

Gerald Kaufman, MP for Manchester Gorton and an NUJ member, said the plans to “top-slice” the licence fee were “superficial, stupid and ill-thought out”.

MORE THAN 100 people packed another joint union event, at the Labour Party conference in September, where audience members urged culture secretary Ben Bradshaw, an NUJ member and former BBC journalist, not to “top slice” the TV licence fee.

Labour MP John Grogan said that any attempt to push the idea through parliament would face resistance. Ben Bradshaw replied that he didn’t consider “top slicing” to be an accurate description of the government’s proposals. He reiterated support for an independent and publicly funded BBC.

It went down well in Wales

NUJ REPS brought the union’s message on the future of the BBC to all parties in Wales when they lobbied major political events in September.

Welsh national executive members Meic Birtwistle and Neil Taylor did the round of the party stands at the National Eisteddfod in Bala to warn of the threats to the licence fee.

Plaid Cymru President Dafydd Iwan and the Liberal Democrats’ Wales leader Kirsty Williams supported the idea of a motion at the Welsh Assembly on the crisis facing the media in Wales.

Neil Taylor and Roy Jones of the NUJ North Wales branch took the message to Plaid Cymru’s autumn conference in Llandudno. Meeting party president Dafydd Iwan and heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones AM, they discussed the proposed assembly motion and the NUJ’s economic stimulus plan for the Welsh media.