Public Accounts Committee report found that the BBC had 25,000 "off payroll" contracts, 13,000 for people who were on air. The contracts enable people to make their own arrangements to pay tax and National Insurance, which could allow them to contribute less than employees on pay-as-you-earn tax. In response, the BBC said many of them were short-term contracts but that it was carrying out a detailed review of tax arrangements. Funding The fact that the BBC's domestic services are funded mainly by a television licence fee is heavily criticised by its competitors and others on a number of grounds. The rise of multichannel digital television led to criticism that the licence fee is unjustifiable on the basis that minority interest programmes can now be transmitted on specialist commercial subscription channels and that the licence fee was funding a number of digital-only channels, which many licence holders at the time could not watch (such as BBC Three and BBC Four). However, since 24 October 2012, with the completion of the digital switchover, all licence payers can now access that content. BBC Russia On 17 August 2007, it was reported that FM broadcast of the BBC's Russian-language service in Russia would be dropped, leaving only medium- and short-wave broadcasts. The financial organisation Finam, which owns the FM radio service that dropped the BBC Russia broadcasts, said through its spokesman, Igor Ermachenkov, "Any media which is government-financed is propaganda – it's a fact, it's not negative". A spokesman, for the BBC responded, "Although the BBC is funded by the UK government... a fundamental principle of its constitution and its regulatory regime is that it is editorially independent of the UK government". Reports put the development in the context of criticism of the Russian government for curbing media freedom and strained British-Russian relations. Reporters Without Borders condemned the move as censorship. See also BBC controversies References External links BBC homepage BBC controversies BBC Media bias controversies Politics of the United Kingdom