I NOTE we have yet another Green Paper on the future of the BBC “Concerns raised for future of top BBC shows”, The Herald, July 13). In essence this is just the the same old weary analysis that was set out in the Thatcher/ Major / Birt era of the1980s and 90s: slice up the BBC (just like the NHS), sell it off brazenly, add a combination of stealth, then leak the Green Paper's contents to the printed press and other competitors a week in advance.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale's seeming call is for the BBC to revert to its core strengths, defined by its founding director-general Lord Reith, to "inform, educate and entertain". Whatever criticisms are thrown against the corporation, it surely cannot be accused of breaching these basic tenets.

I agree there isn't a lot to my taste on BBC One. I can happily live, and do, without The Voice, Strictly et al. And, yes, I'll throw the radio or TV or whatever out the window in response to perceived "bias" in its news content. But that's not the point.

Mr Whittingdale's agenda is intentionally designed to, yet again, leave the BBC stuck between a rock and a hard place. Stop chasing the ratings, see the audience disappear. Settle for the "high ground", see - and hear - the audience disappear. Funding trashed. End of public service broadcasting. The next move would be to give us the option to pay to not receive adverts on the BBC. Perish the thought.

By all means shed the layers of pseudo management which clog up the BBC system and re-channel public money into the talents who produce the content. I'm sure Lord Director-General Hall could exponentially reduce his salary and those of the legions of private-sector consultants who owe their remunerations to licence-fee payers without ever having made or produced anything on radio, TV online or anywhere.

I keep up with ongoing developments for BBC Radio in this public/private sector hybrid. It is still one of the world's largest brands - and about to expand. It costs relative buttons, but radio always will be the BBC's greatest international ambassador. Mr Whittingdale, please take note.

Stewart Cruickshank,

BBC Music Radio 1980-2014,

42A Victoria Crescent Road, Glasgow.

THE BBC has failed the people. It provides little else than a diet of trivia which is bad for everyone.

Repeats we have all seen many times before; anything new is done on the cheap, involving cookery or travel with one person or two. Yet the salaries of the presenters and those who run it are a decent fraction of a million in many cases.

The quality of our television determines who we are. In the days of Huw Weldon the BBC aimed to uplift, inform and stimulate the nation. That is no longer true. Clearly the ambition to provide a service to the country which entertains has been replaced by one guaranteed to send us to sleep in front of it. Even the doctors know that this is bad for the country: to stay alive is to move or be moved; inertia is death.

Since there has been so little worthwhile change these last five years, what should be done? When those in charge cannot do the job they should be replaced.

Three things need to be changed: the personnel, the salaries and ambition to make programmes that invigorate the population, not send it to sleep, to an early death in some cases.

The organisation should be demolished and rebuilt with new ideals. The failures during the Jimmy Savile scandal show just how useless it is. For years, there was no courage and no decency. Preserving the status quo came first.

William Scott,

23 Argyle Place, Rothesay.