Attenborough enters battle to save licence fee

Sir David Attenborough, Britain's most experienced television broadcaster, has taken a swipe at the campaign to abolish the BBC licence fee, saying that without it quality programmes such as The Blue Planet would not be made.

In an interview with The Independent, Sir David passionately defends the system against accusations that it is an outmoded way of financing television programmes which may even infringe human rights.

"The licence fee is the key to important broadcasting. Almost everything you can think of that you and I admire about the BBC is due to the fact of the licence fee. It's very difficult to sustain public service broadcasting without it, that I don't have any doubt about at all," Sir David said.

"We know the licence system is safe for the next few years or so but I'm sure that it's going to need battles to keep it going and I'm equally sure that it's the basis on which the BBC's greatest successes will be built."

A growing number of commentators have voiced opposition to the TV licence.In the age of satellite television and digital channels it is unfair to require everyone with a television set to pay the annual fee, irrespective of whether or not they watch the BBC, critics argue.

One columnist of a newspaper controlled by Rupert Murdoch, an outspoken critic of the licence system,argued that the fee contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights, which stipulates the right "to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers".