Thompson, addressing critics of the BBC in a speech to the Cambridge Radio Festival last night, insisted that Radio 1 and Radio 2 have achieved 'distinctiveness' from the commercial radio sector, despite claims to the contrary from commercial radio networks.
He said he was now looking to make the brands more distinctive by introducing comedy programming to the scheduling of both stations.
To cool the ire of the commercial sector, Thompson insisted that part of the remit from the BBC governors, which are soon to be replaced by a Trust, was to commission independent monitoring of the corporation's two popular music-orientated stations, making sure that they did not overstep their public service remit, and that they stayed distinct from commercial radio brands.
"Distinctiveness should be the goal for every BBC service on every medium," he said. "For the past few years we've been on a path of greater distinctiveness."
Thompson challenged dissenters demanding the privatisation of the two stations because of perceived competition against the commercial sector, saying that the introduction into the market of two new commerciallyfunded national stations would not help commercial radio's cause.
Yesterday, local radio firm UKRD said in a letter it had sent to the director-general that the BBC was damaging small commercial stations so much through competition that it should compensate them by funding their public service broadcasting.
In the letter, dated June 30, UKRD chief executive William Rogers attacked the BBC's "growing commercial approach" and accused it of being determined to "dominate local markets by ruthlessly cross-promoting its services using public money".
The letter was another addition to the chorus of disapproval from the commercial sector in the run-up to negotiations between the BBC and government over the level of the licence fee from 2007.
The BBC has submitted a licence-fee bid for an increase of inflation plus 2.3%. The BBC now takes a 55.4% share of listening according to the first quarter results from official radio measurement body Rajar.
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