ronin - 3:00 pm on Feb 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

The BBC does already have advertising (for its own products) that's true. But they're not likely to lose that advertising if the slot is preceded or followed by some uncomfortable or controversial programming.

When advertisers say to you: "If you do a Panorama special about how much money the UK taxpayer has spent on the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (GBP 20 billion by Joseph Stiglitz' estimate) and how many men, women and children are now dead (Brits, Iraqis, Afghans, soldiers, civilians, journalists and everyone else) instead of alive because the UK taxpayer's money has been spent in such a way, we're pulling our ads," you then have to make an editorial decision about whether you're even going to air the programme. Or make it in the first place. People might not feel like going out and treating themselves if they realised they've been legally forced to be financially complicit in state-sanctioned mass murder.

Not that the BBC actually does air very much uncomfortable or controversial programming, but - in theory at least - it has the option to as long as commercial advertisers aren't holding the purse-strings.