Grade's plan to fund Channel 4

Michael Grade has criticised the BBC for becoming over-burdened with bureaucracy (PA)

The former head of Channel 4 yesterday called for the group to be funded by the BBC licence fee, "to repair a broadcasting model that is fast breaking down".

Michael Grade's comments on C4, where he was chief executive in the 1990s, came in a lecture to Magdalene College, Cambridge last night. He said the move would allow C4 to abandon advertising as its source of funding as the days when its ad income were "both sufficient and secure are now numbered". He said the move would reinvigorate the competition with the BBC, adding he was "not advocating salami slicing" the corporation, where he was chairman between 2004 and 2006. Mr Grade, most recently executive chairman of ITV, said the move would also be positive for the commercial sector by reducing the oversupply of advertising.