MUCH as it grates to see any public service granted above-inflation increases in its charges year after year, the raising of the TV licence fee on this scale to fund the BBC can hardly be described as excessive.

For even at the new level of £104 from next April, it is hard to imagine how much entertainment and information as that provided by the BBC might be obtained elsewhere for just £2 a week.

And given that, notionally, the licence covers all TV - and together with the new concessions for over-75s - it remains a remarkable bargain even with the above-inflation increases that have been granted over the next seven years.

But if this fact is sometimes overlooked, particularly when the summer programme schedules are packed with repeats, what needs to be remembered is that the BBC, with its peculiar funding, is also a yardstick for quality.

If that premise can at times also be doubted, the explosion of TV choice in the multi-channel revolution wrought by satellite and digital TV reminds us that in the world of purely-commercial TV, "more" generally means less when it comes to quality. But, in allowing the new increases in the licence fee, the government has, however, been shrewd in reminding the BBC that it does not have an automatic and fully-open tap to the viewers' money.

It may have got another £200 million a year, but it has got far less than the £700 million it asked for and has been ordered to raise an additional £1.1 billion itself over the next seven years through efficiency savings and commercial ventures.

And with the bogey of a separate levy for digital TV having been dispelled, the growth of this market - and the BBC's share in it - will not be depressed by slower uptake by viewers.

In short, though watching TV will be a little dearer for most homes, the deal means that the BBC has been given the financial confidence to carry on providing quality television and setting standards for the rest while, at the same time, being steeled into greater efficiency and even better value for money.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.