Earlier this month the BBC Trust commissioned a poll that looked like an attempt to kick the part of the Digital Britain report dealing with the provison of local news into the long grass. Sir Michael Lyons came out to bat on September 9th, in the Guardian:

Quoting the BBC-commissioned survey of more than 2,000 adults, Lyons said they had been given six choices what to do with the licence fee surplus once digital switchover was complete.

"Around half of those asked would prefer the licence fee to be lowered by £5.50, compared to just six per cent who wanted additional money to be spent on regional news on other channels," said Lyons.

That's not a terribly helpful precis of the 'topline' data from the survey. 61% of those polled supported the idea of getting £5.50 back (they scored it between 7-10 on a scale of 1-10 where 1 meant 'No Support at all' and 10 meant 'Complete Support'), and 49% of those polled saw the lower license fee as their preferred option. That much is true.

But 27% of those asked supported increased funding for regional news (it was the preferred option of 6%, as Lyons says), 29% supported increased funding for other forms of public service content outside the BBC and 36% supported increased funding for program-making at the BBC.

Now here's the thing. Until we know how many of those who saw a lower licence fee as the best outcome also supported the use of funds for expanded program-making, we don't know how many people in the survey had registered the fact that a lower license fee would rule out all the other options, and weren't really clear about what the survey was asking them, or weren't really that bothered about having all the money back, but gave that answer because they wanted some of it. I can well believe that many people want a lower licence fee, but how many of them also want improved public service content?

After all if I strongly agree with the idea of giving the money to regional journalism and with having all the £5.50 back, I am not really paying attention, and am probably in a hurry to be somewhere else, away from the stranger with the clipboard.

The head of the BBC Trust will doubtless take the trouble to publish the full report on the poll with as much fanfare as it has presented its own highly partial summary of the 'topline' data. But it would be even better if they re-ran the survey with a couple more questions -

Do you think that the £5.50 from the digital switchover should be used to fund investigations into local and national corruption, abuse of the planning system and criminal behaviour by local and national elites, these investigations to be chosen by a democratic vote, like in TV talent shows, only with crooks in high places. Britain's Top Economic and Political Gangster, sort of thing?

Or do you think that the £5.50 should be spent on what you, as a public organised locally, regionally and nationally want, including but not limited to Britain's Top Economic and Political Gangster as above?

Now that's a survey I would like the body statutorily responsible for defending the interests of the BBC's audience to commission.