Its chairman was a member of the Soviet government, there was no licence fee, and state budgets took care of all running costs.
The cost was fully paid by BBC Worldwide as part of a trip to visit Worldwide businesses in Australia, so no licence fee funds were used".
Now, generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts: the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts, and no licence fee payer woke up today wishing that the BBC had added restrictions to its programming.
Yet Thompson should heed the words of a man who cares passionately about the BBC and who recently warned that "without the abiding support of the British public... there would be no licence fee, no BBC, no Channel 4 certainly its present form, and the rest of broadcasting would look much like it is in most other countries".
"The new development has been financed by a public-private partnership involving a special bond - so no licence fee monies have been used for the construction". Was the financier a philanthropist?
"No future licence fee negotiations must be conducted in the way of the 2010 settlement".
In the the report, published in February, Whittingdale wrote: "No future licence fee negotiations must be conducted in the way of the 2010 settlement.
In the Commons on Monday, John Whittingdale, the culture secretary who only in February chaired the committee that concluded "No future licence fee negotiations must be conducted in the way of the 2010 settlement", ducked the invitation to explain how exactly the same thing had just happened again.
The acquisition means it no longer has to pay licence fees to use Symbian, and open-sourcing it makes the platform more attractive to programmers and other handset-makers.Let battle commenceHow will this conflict play out?
Those vast licence fees may never be recouped.
