The BBC suspended operation of its £150m children’s education site, BBC Jam, last week after complaints were made to the European Commission that the site unfairly effects the commercial market for similar content. The site, which provides free educational content for children in the 5-to-16 age group, will no longer be accessible from Tuesday.
Although I think that the BBC does waste a lot of taxpayers money, it still excels in certain areas and one of those is providing educational content. In fact part of the BBC’s charter is to promote education and learning. Although I’m a big believer in the Thatcherite policies of encouraging competition, I think this is going one step too far as surely setting up services like BBC Jam is one of the reasons why the BBC still exists?
