The BBC denied reports this morning suggesting that it was threatening to pull its terrestrial channels from Sky if the charges soar.
In a statement the public service broadcaster said: "The BBC has a long-standing commitment to broadcast its television, radio and interactive services on all platforms, and as such has no plans to pull its services from satellite television. Our contract to be on the BSkyB platform comes up for renewal next year, and all negotiations will be done in the best interests of license fee payers."
BSkyB charges all the terrestrial networks - the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 - for conditional access services. This provides encryption of the channel's signal and prevents it from being carried on other satellite networks.
The BBC statement comes on the heels of telecommunications watchdog Oftel's decision yesterday to throw out ITV's complaint that the £17m a year it was charged for carriage on Sky Digital is too high.
The UK terrestrial stations are lobbying the government to ban charges to public service broadcasters, as their signals do not need to be encrypted because the services are available to everyone. They do not have to pay to be carried on cable services Telewest and NTL.
The channels are believed to have won support from a number of MPs including Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, who sits on the culture, media and sport select committee.
The committee itself has recommended that public service channels are carried for free on Sky.
BSkyB argues that its charges are justified as it has invested £2bn in its digital network, which allows broadcasters such as ITV to benefit from reaching its 6m subscribers and from interactive programming.
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