Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, announced in the nine-point manifesto submission to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport that there are no plans for the BBC to launch any new TV or radio channels.
"The most urgent priority is not further expansion but completing the challenge of creating a fully digital Britain," he said.
Thompson added that he believed the switchover from analogue to digital would happen by 2012, two years later than the time envisaged by the Government.
The BBC put up a robust defence of its funding coming from the licence fee, rather than from advertising or subscription.
However, it sought to depoliticise the process of setting the licence fee, proposing that the task be given to an independent body modelled on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.
One of the key areas the plan addresses is the issue of governance - the BBC was savaged by the Hutton report following the suicide of Dr David Kelly. But the BBC chairman, Michael Grade, dismissed calls for regulation of the Corporation to be brought under the auspices of Ofcom.
"Governance is not the same as regulation. Governance is about stewardship: stewardship of the money and stewardship of the public interest. This is the difference between the BBC Governors and Ofcom. Ofcom has no responsibility for anybody's money," he said.
He promised, however, to reform the BBC's governance by separating the board of governors from the management and to give them a beefed-up role overseeing the Corporation's output.
They will now apply a test of public value to all of the BBC's activities to assess what the BBC should and shouldn't do. They will issue a "service licence" setting out in detail the remit, conditions, objective and budget for each BBC channel or operation.
One of the governors' first demands has been for current affairs to be restored to a more prominent place in the schedule. This is likely to see BBC1's flagship current affairs programme Panorama moved from its present slot on Sunday night to a more high-profile slot.
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