Dear Jeremy

(this is one of a new regular series of posts aimed at Mr Jeremy Hunt, the UK Culture Secretary, who we know reads this blog - or at least his office does...)

How come Channel 4, a public service broadcaster, seems to show nothing except for property, social cooking, extreme shock health and US programming. Why not just privatise it and take a tax against its EPG position. Why do we need two PBS services in the UK ?

Ah, I see the problem, our main PBS is so huge that no private enterprise can cope with it. So, the BBC need a foil, so why not also make it public, duh ?

TV in the UK needs a total rethink and let me suggest some things:

1) Use income from the licence fees to subsidise ultra rural broadband (already being done, eh? Hmmm... I see no evidence yet).
2) Privatise BBC Worldwide...
3) Privatise or close down Channel4 - it's irrelevant
4) Provide a substantial fund for ultra local TV, especially in Wales, where you handed all broadcasting to the BBC, enfranschising their dreadful monopoly now they control S4C
5) Regulate the new broadcasters - create a level playing field for the likes of YouTube and Amazon and regulate them like the broadcasters they are and aspire to be
6) Qualify the 'Redifusion Rule' which allows 're-broadcasting' of UK TV signals, and de-reglate distribution
7) Halve the licence fee - OK that will now take a few years, but how the heck does Channel4 produce better news with a fraction of the cost of BBC News? And how come ITV come up with the best period drama of the last decade ? What exactly is the BBC for ?
8) Finally, we have to create some kind of capital base in the UK that invests in businesses, not sheer gambling. We produce the world's best companies but they're then bought out, and we don't really buy and import much wealth at all, since out capital is tied up in future derrivative positions in coffee hedged against Guatemalan mortgage risk and the distributed in hedged tranches to secndary markets going round and round un the dreadful City and causing huge damage to real business.

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards,

Iolo Jones