ITN executives accused BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, of undercutting the commercial sector so severely that the only explanation was that licence fee money was picking up the bill.
The report in the Sunday broadsheet The Business said ITN charged the BBC with breaking fair trade rules on several occasions, and called for any new BBC licence-fee funded service to be regulated by Ofcom rather than its board of governors.
However, according to a spokeswoman for BBC World -- the BBC's 24-hour international news service -- the claims were wide of the mark because, as part of BBC Worldwide, BBC World "has to pay the BBC for use of any of its publicly funded content".
This arrangement ensures that it could not be encroaching on licence fee money because BBC Worldwide is only allowed to put money into the publicly funded operation and not take any out.
The article drew attention to a deal that sees BBC Worldwide provide a BBC World daily news service to British Airways free of charge.
The spokeswoman said that BBC World already provided a bespoke weekly news programme and weekly new media and internet programme called Click Online to BA, which the airline paid for.
In addition to that agreement BA is allowed to access BBC World's 4am GMT daily news bulletin free of charge, that it can then broadcast throughout the day on BA flights.
BBC World has also defended the distribution of its news service on the Heathrow Express rail link, which an anonymous TV executive said was banned in the UK. According to BBC World, the Heathrow Express is considered international space and does not fall under that restriction.
The spokeswoman added that although the BBC does not want to start a row over comments reported in the press earlier this week, it is considering writing a response to The Business to clear up any confusion.
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