Media Brief

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

There will be no increase to the TV licence fee in 2011 after the BBC Trust offered to freeze it at £145.50 for the next two years, the BBC reports. But could the fee actually be cut in 2012?The Trust believes that would be a breach of the existing agreement but the DCMS has not ruled it out.

The Times says[subscription required] "The BBC was pitched into a battle over the future of the licence fee yesterday after government sources suggested that ministers might abandon the current deal with the corporation and cut the fee in 2012".

The Guardian says the director general of the BBC Mark Thompson warned that the corporation may not be able to bid for programme rights as a consequence.

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint by TV and radio presenter Clare Balding over an article in the Sunday Times that mocked her sexuality, reports the BBC.

A new free-to-air, web-connected TV service, combining Freeview digital channels with on-demand content such as iPlayer will launch in the UK in 2011, reports the BBC. YouView - formerly known as Project Canvas - is a partnership between BT, the BBC, ITV, Five, Channel 4, Arqiva and TalkTalk.

The Guardian says the News of the World will be the next News International paper to go behind a paywall.

The Daily Mail has launched "Whinge Watch", monitoring "the BBC's biased reporting of the battle to save Britain's economy".

Is the BBC pension offer a good one? Phillip Inman writes in the Guardian that the compromise deal offered by Mark Thompson will still make BBC workers some of the richest pensioners the UK has known.

The BBC Newspaper review says the papers reflect on the Pope's first day of the visit to the UK. With the child sex abuse scandal "overshadowing the Pope's every move", the Independent calls his visit to the UK "mission improbable". It asks whether the Pope's message is "doomed to fall on stony ground?"

Links in full

• BBC | No licence fee increase in 2011
• Patrick Foster | Times | BBC freezes television licence fee at £145.50
• Guardian | BBC chief gives warning as licence fee faces freeze
• BBC | Clare Balding complaint over sexuality is upheld
• BBC | Project Canvas to become YouView
• Mark Sweney | Guardian | News of the World to go behind online paywall
• Tim Montgomerie | Daily Mail | BBC's biased reporting of the battle to save Britain's economy
• Phillip Inman Guardian | BBC | Staff should grab pensions deal
• BBC | Newspaper review

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