About £150m ($296m) a year of BBC licence fee money currently used to pay for the digital switchover could be shared with other broadcasters after 2012, under one proposal published on Thursday for funding public service broadcasting in the UK.

Ofcom argued on Thursday that a new model would be needed by 2011 to tackle the “increasingly difficult” economics for commercial public service broadcasters competing with the BBC. Ministers had been expected to introduce updates to the 2003 Communications Act, but not as soon as 2011.