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Although the plans are substantially the same as those laid out in a Green Paper published last year, the role of Ofcom has been enhanced.

The body will be responsible for evaluating the market impact of new services, such as channel launches, or 'significant' alterations to existing services.

The board of governors, which has regulated the Corporation for 80 years, is to be replaced by a BBC Trust.

The trust will put in place a 'public-value test' for news services and will ensure that the executive board acts in accordance with six new 'purposes' that the BBC has been given.

These purposes are: sustaining citizenship and civil society; promoting education and learning; stimulating creativity and cultural excellence by using the licence fee as venture capital for creativity; representing the UK, its nations and regions; bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK; and building digital Britain.

The BBC has been banned from running on-air trails for BBC magazines, although trails for products related to individual programmes, such as tie-in books and DVDs, will remain.

Although the licence fee is assured for the duration of the 10-year Royal Charter, the government has said that it would undertake reviews of the system after digital switchover is complete in 2012, which could lead to changes in the way public-service broadcasting is funded after 2016.