In its bid to the ITC, the corporation only revealed plans for a free-to-air digital television service, but according to a report in The Business, director general Greg Dyke has other plans.
In a letter to the ITC not released to the press last week when the bids were revealed, Dyke admits that pay-TV services are future options. However, licence fee-funded BBC stations will be free.
New services will be the remit of the BBC's commercial arm BBC Worldwide. A BBC move into pay-TV services is likely to anger some in the commercial sector, not least the rival Channel 4 and ITV bid, which will see it as a perceived example of the BBC abusing its licence payers.
The BBC has teamed up with BSkyB and transmission company Crown Castle for its bid to provide a free-to-air digital service.
In the unpublished letter, Dyke writes about how the breadth of consumer choice need not remain static -- "the reintroduction of pay-TV on the platform is still a possibility, particularly with an increase in digital terrestrial television capacity when digital switchover is achieved".
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