BSkyB has delivered a sharp response to the BBC Trust’s latest strategy review, accusing the Trust of an unwillingness to serve the interests of licence-fee payers.

May 27, 2010 — Following the BBC Trust’s recent strategy review, BSkyB isn’t mincing its words in expressing its dissatisfaction with the results. A letter sent to the BBC Trust on May 25 from BSkyB’s director of corporate affairs, Graham McWilliam, expresses “significant reservations” about the way the Trust carried out the review. BSkyB accuses the Trust of being unwilling or unable to “put license fee payers first”, citing various examples where the Trust has made only small strategy adjustments. These, McWilliams writes, fall short of the changes BSkyB deems necessary to maintain the BBC’s commitment to the public interest and to fair competition.

The main thrust of the letter is that the BBC should not be investing licence-fee payers’ money in content that is adequately provided by commercial broadcasters. The decision to reduce spending on Hollywood films by just 20%, it says, doesn’t go far enough — after all, the UK’s Sky Digital and Virgin Media services provide access to a wide range of films both as regular programming and as on-demand content.

Similarly, the recommendation to close the BBC radio station 6Music is said to be out of touch with the Trust’s earlier findings that the station makes an important contribution to “the delivery of the BBC’s public purposes”.

It’s a pointed list of criticisms of an organisation increasingly finding itself in the firing line of commercial operators. Last year, News Corporation’s CEO for Europe and Asia, James Murdoch (who also acts as CEO of BSkyB), announced plans to charge subscription fees on websites owned by News Corp. In his speech at the time, he criticised what he called the BBC’s ability to “flood the market” with free news content paid for by the license fee. This, he said, made it harder for commercial news providers to charge a fair price for their content.

It seems unlikely that BSkyB and the BBC will be kissing and making up any time soon.