Public backs BBC licence fee

The Government has published the results of  a major public consultation on the future of the BBC, carried out from December 2003 to March 2004.
 
The report, What You Said About The BBC, is likely to be seen as an endorsement of the Corporation's work. Polls revealed an overall satisfaction rating for the BBC of 75% and the licence fee was widely considered to be the best – or the “least worst” – way to pay for it.
 
However, the public’s view of the value for money delivered by the BBC is equivocal – with 46% saying it delivered fairly good or very good value for money, compared to 43% taking the opposite view.
 
And the BBC is no longer widely thought of as "Auntie". Instead it can, apparently, be best characterised as "a man in his 50s, suited, comfortably off, conventional, conservative and reserved, who appeared friendly but was powerful and sometimes domineering".