Last week former senior BBC executive Roger Mosey, who oversaw the corporation's London 2012 Olympics coverage, suggested more of the licence fee could go to its commercial rivals and that BBC3 and BBC4 could be axed to prevent programming spend being spread too thinly.
In 1989, the programme was instituted on a permanent basis and a compulsory observer programme with 100% coverage was implemented at the expense of the licence holders.
Earlier this month, Roger Mosey, a long-serving former BBC executive in roles including the oversight of its Olympic coverage, said the corporation should get a smaller slice of the licence fee to promote competition and give the public wider choice.
Praising the BBC's "exuberant" Olympic coverage, the "vision" of its director general Mark Thompson and explicitly saying she was a supporter of the licence fee, was a way of creating maximum contrast with James and Rupert.
And in those pre-Sky days, all the best sports – including live coverage of England's summer Test match series – could be watched on television for the very modest cost of the licence fee.
The culture secretary also indicated his commitment to hand part of the licence fee to outside organisations to make programming such as children's TV, arts coverage and local news.
He also defended plans to hand part of the licence fee to regional ITV news programmes in an attempt to prop up local news coverage.
And while it recommends keeping the TV licence, it says there should be more coverage of the island - including a daily online news service.
Sources used to identify controls driver's licence and Medicare enrolment records provide nearly complete coverage of the study population.
He told MPs he personally objected to having to pay a television licence fee of £145.50, as he attacked the coverage of the jubilee celebrations as "scandalous, shabby and rather unprofessional".
(The final digit of the licence plate determines which day).
