Greg Dyke: Sees digital role as essential for BBC

He goes as far as suggesting Ms Jowell will approve the television licences but refuse to grant permission to plough money into digital radio.

He partly blames the lack of investment in the receiving technology - making existing models expensive - for the low take-up rate of digital radios.

The BBC's plans are part of director general Greg Dyke's strategy to expand BBC services to meet the new possibilities offered by digital broadcasting.

Earlier this month at the Radio Festival in Manchester Mr Dyke complained that the BBC has so far spent �30m on digital radio and has precious little to show for it.

'Failure'

Commercial counterparts too have been pouring money into digital multiplexes and new digital stations, but so far there are fewer than 40,000 digital radios in the whole of the UK.

And Mr Bannister is cynical of the prospect of digital radio making any impact on the majority of radio listeners.

"Privately, the BBC and commercial radio are wringing their hands about the failure of digital to take off, but neither can afford to admit in public that a technology on which they have staked their futures may never become a consumer reality," he wrote in the Times.

"The biggest stumbling block for digital radio is the listeners themselves. You see, we listeners really believe that radio is free - not just free to listen to, but free to receive.

"Radio sets come free with midi systems, with ghetto blasters, in cars and in Walkmans.

"When we buy them separately, we can get a perfectly serviceable set for a few quid."

Mr Bannister, a former head of marketing and communications at the BBC, left the corporation at the end of 2000 and started work as the head of a dance music company, Trust the DJ.