Letter: TV licence we can do without

Sir: In my idealistic youth when I thought that the BBC was slightly better than sliced bread, I remember contributing to a fund to fight the introduction of independent television.

Forty years on I find that I rarely look at television, and then mostly at the late evening ITN news. Once or twice a year I may watch a Panorama programme if it is dealing with a subject that interests me or for which I have been interviewed - in either case I am not over-impressed by their journalistic standards.

There must be many people who only use their television sets to watch videos or television programmes other than those produced by the BBC. They, like me, must be irritated by having to pay for television licences. Rather than increasing the licence fee ("Birt sounds alarm bells over future of the BBC", 24 August) we would like to see it abolished and the introduction of advertising on the BBC or of "pay as you view".

J A DENNIS

Oxford