Media Brief

I'm the BBC's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The TV licence fee has been frozen for six years, and the BBC will also take over the funding of the World Service and the Welsh-language channel, S4C. The BBC reports that a A formal announcement will be made during the Spending Review.

In my analysis I explain that some fear that the World Service may lose some of its distinctiveness, or be first in line for cuts.

The Guardian says it will be seen as one of the defining moments in the BBC's 88-year history. Its future funding has been "hammered out in frantic negotiations in little over three days, with the broadcaster coming off decidedly second best".

The Daily Mail says the 16% real-terms cut "has triggered fury among senior figures at the corporation". It is the first time since the 1950s that the licence fee has been frozen for such a long period.

On Radio 4's Today former chief executive of Channel 5 David Elstein said the licence-payer was now paying for more things that had nothing to do with the BBC, and it is not sustainable.

The Guardian reports that the BBC must also find the funds to pay for the rollout of DAB digital radio, according to culture minister Ed Vaizey, speaking at the Radio Festival in Salford.

The Independent's spinoff newspaper i, which launches next Tuesday priced 20p, will be backed by iPhone and iPad applications and a two-week giveaway of 100,000 copies. The Guardian says that for the first two weeks 100,000 copies a day will be given away for free

The BBC newspaper review says the Independent's headline "Axe Wednesday" is echoed in all of the papers. The Daily Express believes the "brutal scale" of the cuts will "deliver bad news to all sections of society". That, says the Financial Times, is the whole point. "As long as everyone hates us," one architect of the cuts reportedly tells the paper, "it's OK".

Links in full

• BBC | Television licence fee to be frozen for next six years
• Torin Douglas| BBC | Licence fee freeze and higher costs for BBC in future
• Guardian | BBC licence fee frozen at £145.50 for six years
• Daily Mail | BBC heads off plan to pick up cost of free viewing for over-75s... but at what price?
• David Elstein | BBC | Today BBC licence fee freeze 'wrong'
• Guardian | BBC expected to underwrite DAB rollout, says Ed Vaizey
• Mark Sweney | Guardian | Independent's i to launch with two-week giveaway of 100,000 copies
• BBC | Newspaper review

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