I have just been reading another installment in the seemingly never-ending saga of the BBC and its outrageous demands to extract ever increasing amounts of money in the form of its licence 'fee'.

The story I read was about an attempt by MPs and peers to have their say over the size of this 'fee' - I would rather call it a tax - due to rise by twice the rate of inflation between 2007 and 2014.

It's officially due to the transition to digital broadcasting.

Of course, it might also be something to do with the fact that the BBC sees fit to pay people like Jonathan Ross £18 million for three years worth of ...well let's see, what shall we call it? Light entertain-ment? Waffle? Prattle - or should that be pwattle? Well, you decide on that one.

The £4 billionn that the BBC proposes to extract from us by 2014 could also be something to do with their attempts to build up an internet empire, which they have certainly vowed to do.

Quite how they can impose a levy on people for supposedly watching their TV shows and then siphon off a large chunk of it for a quite different purpose doesn't seem to add

up to me. But then, neither does this licence fee business anyway.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - it is quite absurd that in an age of multi-channel broadcasting, where all of the output from the commercial sector is paid for

by subscriptions, pay-perview or advertising, that we have to support the BBC via the licence tax, surely an anachronism if there ever was one?

Even if you never watch the BBC, you still have to cough up for this tax.

It's crazy and illogical and I doubt there is a precedent for it anywhere else in the world.

The commercial broadcasters must be furious that they have to compete with an organisation that in reality doesn't have to bother about the quality of its programming output or what its rivals are up to, because its income is guaranteed.

In fact, they are totally smug about the whole thing -in the story I read today, the BBC defended the licence fee by claiming that even with the inflation-busting increase it was still "good value for money".

I think that's really where I nearly choked on my corn-flakes.

Good value for money? How can something that I hardly ever watch be good value for money?

Frankly, the BBC needs to understand that the old days of the virtual monopoly which it presided over through BBC1 and 2 are long gone.

I would guess that most homes have means of access-ing the hundreds of channels that are available these days via the likes of cable, Freeview and Sky.

Technological advancements mean that mobile TV is now beginning to become a reality - ie watching TV via a PC or your mobile phone.

Employers have already been warned that they need TV licences in the workplace if their staff watch the World Cup via a PC.

However, watching TV on a mobile or a PC is going to make it kind of hard for the BBC's famous detector vans to catch up with you.

When watching it that way becomes commonplace, it will be even harder for the BBC to convince the rest of us that we should continue to subsidise its activities. Roll on, I say. ..SUPL: