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- guardian.co.uk, Monday February 12 2001 15.23 GMT
Culture secretary Chris Smith has ordered three new investigations looking at whether the BBC is abusing its public service position.
One inquiry will look into whether the BBC is using the licence fee to subsidise its commercial activities. The other two reviews will focus on BBC Online and rolling news service News 24.
Mr Smith has appointed Law professor Richard Whish to lead the review of the BBC's commercial policies and fair trading rules.
He will look in particular at whether there is enough separation between the BBC's public service operations and commercial arm BBC Worldwide.
Mr Smith told the Financial Times: "There must be a firm wall between licence fee-funded activity - which must be part of the public service responsibilities for a domestic audience - and commercial activities which must be funded commercially and make a commercial return."
The other two reviews will take place after the general election, which is expected to be called for early May.
The review of BBC Online follows complaints from commercial broadcasters and internet publishers that the corporation is competing unfairly.
BSkyB has long argued that News 24, which the BBC gives away to pay-TV operators for free, provides unfair competition for its own news channel Sky News.
News of the new government reviews of the BBC comes on the day of the deadline for submissions about the communications white paper.
The BBC said it had no comment to make immediately.
