Ofcom said on Wednesday that it should be responsible for enforcing competition rules on the BBC similar to those imposed on commercial broadcasters.

In what is being viewed as an attempt at expansion by the regulator, Ofcom said that the BBC should be subject to the same competition rules as commerical TV channels - and that any new services from the corporation should be subject to impact assessment reviews by Ofcom instead of the BBC's governors.

The proposal received a decidedly lukewarm response from the BBC:

"The current arrangements were enshrined in the Communications Act only 18 months ago after full and detailed debate and scrutiny in Parliament," it said in a statement. "The Governors believe these arrangements are working well and see no reason to start trying to undo any of them."