Let’s stop paying the TV licence fee.

That’s one of the radical suggestions from a select committee report on the future of Manx Radio and public service broadcasting that is due to be debated in Tynwald next week.

The idea that island residents should be released from any obligation to pay the licence fee and the BBC should no longer be obliged to provide us services is described as a ’fall-back option’.

That would mean viewers in the Isle of Man who watch television from local relay masts for Freeview or on satellite services, which know the addresses of viewers, might not be able to see popular programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who and the corporation’s two children’s channels.

Negotiations by the Council of Ministers with the UK government and the BBC should aim at securing this as one possible outcome, the report says.

This option would keep some £4.8m per year in the island that would allow us ’for the first time to exercise true self-determination in relation to public service broadcasting’.

Quite why the BBC would be willing to give up licence fee revenue is not elaborated on by the committee.

Equally implausible are the other outcomes the committee hopes could be secured from negotiations with the BBC. As a first choice, it would result in more financial support for Manx Radio to avoid the need to increase the subvention.

The second preference would be for the BBC to supply high-quality local news and public service content for broadcast by Manx Radio, and distribution via other media.

The third choice would be for the BBC to set up a radio station for the Isle of Man similar to those operating in Jersey and Guernsey. And then if all these fail, there is the final fall-back option of stopping paying the licence fee.

Other recommendations prove equally controversial.

Former Manx Radio director Charles Fargher has written to committee chairman Dr Alex Allinson saying he is concerned at the recommendation that the station’s reliance on commercial advertising is progressively reduced and ultimately removed.

Mr Fargher said: ’Commercial advertising provides substantial and essential income to the company. If your recommendation were to be implemented it would be inevitable that the cost to the taxpayers for public service media would be at a considerably higher cost.’

The committee report has other recommendations that may find wider support. It suggests there could be long-term cost benefits from Manx Radio moving out of Broadcasting House and into other government-owned or commercially rented premises.

And it calls on the Office of Fair Trading to assess whether Manx Radio is creating unfair competition in the radio advertising market.

Bizarrely, the Tynwald report was the subject of a question in the House of Commons from Brigg and Goole Tory MP Andrew Percy.

He asked the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport whether he planned to respond to the report and assess the merits of its recommendations.

The question was answered by DCMS Minister Margot James who said that responding to the recommendations is a matter for the Manx government. ’The UK government will engage with the Isle of Man Government on these issues where appropriate,’ she said.

Read Charles Fargher’s letter in full, page 22.