A radical shake-up of public service broadcasting, due to be debated by Tynwald this week, risks damaging Manx Radio beyond repair.

That’s the view of the station’s directors Anthony Pugh and Charles Guard, who gave a presentation to Tynwald members last week, expressing their ’serious alarm’ at the select committee proposals.

They acknowledged that relations with government and Treasury had deteriorated in recent years and the board had been seen as ’arrogant, wilful and difficult to deal with, as people who don’t listen and won’t be told’.

The two directors said the report recommendations promote the idea that government can dictate how and what can be broadcast, so Manx Radio will no longer be independent but more akin to a state broadcaster.

Among the recommendations is for Manx Radio’s reliance on commercial advertising to be progressively reduced and ultimately removed.

The directors said: ’So, £1.2m of our income is to be removed from us. We can’t see any alternatives in this report to compensate for this loss of income.

’The backlash from the business community - who haven’t been consulted on this idea - will be enormous.’

But they said the most worrying recommendation was that the definition of mandatory ’public service broadcasting’ should be limited to impartial news and distinctly Manx content - and so entertainment would be considered ’discretionary’.

’This recommendation dismantles a fundamental part of programming and will signal the death knell of Manx Radio,’ they told politicians.

The Council of Ministers have opted not to give a response to the committee report.

Committee chairman Dr Alex Allinson welcomed that, saying it would give members the chance to debate ’openly and freely’. He described the board’s presentation as ’extraordinary’.

He said: ’There was a lot of audio-visual stuff. It was rather defensive.’

Ayre and Michael MHK Tim Baker has tabled an amendment that seeks to torpedo the report by calling Tynwald to merely receive the report and affirm its commitment to independent public services broadcasting.

One of the more controversial recommendations is for the Council of Ministers to negotiate with the BBC to secure money from the BBC to help fund Manx Radio, or provide a news service for the station or establish a local radio station here.

If those fail, the report suggests, the island could be released from the obligation of paying the licence fee and we would no longer have a BBC service here.

Dr Allinson said the UK government has accepted this could be done.

The Manx Radio Tynwald presentation included a video featuring footage taken by Paul Moulton of PMC TV for MTTV that wasn’t credited to him.

He said: ’I’m surprised that Manx Radio gave the impression in their video that they cover Tynwald - in vision.’