A subscriber-only BBC would be poorer for it

SIR – The trouble with proposing a subscription service rather than the licence fee system of funding for the BBC (leading article, July 20) is that it would force the broadcaster to stop catering for minority interests.

The great strength of the present system of funding is that income is not directly dependent on audience size. This is particularly true of the BBC’S radio services. For instance, Radio 3 plays entire orchestral, chamber and operatic works, including those of relatively obscure composers, and a certain amount of jazz.

It is hard to imagine these services surviving under a subscription regime. Similarly, it is doubtful whether Radio 4’s coverage for blind and disabled people, or their religious coverage, would continue.

Personally, I’m an opera-allergic agnostic/atheist (and thankfully able to see) – but I still think our country would be a far poorer place if services such as these were allowed to wither and die. Andrew Papworth

Billericay, Essex

SIR – Evan Davis receives a salary in excess of £250,000 from the BBC. You would think that this gives him enough to buy a tie and a razor. David Kaile

Dorchester

SIR – In 2013 I drove 100 miles to a historic airfield for an interview with the BBC’S The One Show, spent the day there (it was jolly fun, I admit) and then drove 100 miles home again.

No fee and no expenses; just an ice cream, bought for me in the airfield café by the producer. I have kept the stick, which I inscribed in Biro as a memento of the event. Michael Oakey

Managing Editor, The Aviation Historian Dial Post, West Sussex