BBC bosses accused of arrogance

The first ever Parliamentary probe into the BBC's financial affairs ended in acrimony after MPs accused the Corporation of being arrogant, self-satisfied and obsessed with its own independence.

Director- General Mark Thompson was among the executives forced to defend themselves to the cross-party Public Accounts Committee at a Commons hearing into the Freeview digital terrestrial TV service.

Under a new deal, the BBC has opened itself to external audit for the first time.

A National Audit Committee report into the Corporation's multi-million-pound investment in Freeview had already called it a "clear success".

But MPs rounded on Mr Thompson and fellow BBC chiefs for trying to "pick and choose" the topics for audit - and for being "defensive" about the process.

Labour MP Alan Williams branded the BBC an "arrogant and self-satisfied organisation". The BBC had hoped the meeting would herald a new era of accountability and transparency in how it spends licence fee-payers' money.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh demanded to know why all licence fee-payers have to foot the bill for Freeview - some ?11.5million a year - when one in four households still cannot receive the service.

But Mr Thompson insisted the situation was beyond the BBC's control, blaming technical constraints that would not be resolved until analogue signals are switched off in 2012.

He pledged to try to fill the gap in UK households without a terrestrial digital signal by creating a free satellite system similar to Freeview.

The Director-General also told MPs that the success of Freeview had led the number of British households receiving digital TV to rocket from 38 per cent two years ago to a projected 67 per cent in 2005.