The Ofcom chairman, David Currie, has questioned the BBC's claim of a "unique link" with licence fee payers, a key argument the corporation has employed to defend its right to be the sole recipient of this form of public funding.

He said the BBC's assertion of this unique link with viewers and listeners created by the licence fee funding mechanism was more of an "article of faith" than an argument that stood up to proper evidence-based research.

Currie, speaking on public service broadcasting at the London Business School today, also insisted that Ofcom has not been "hoodwinked" by ITV's desire to reduce its public service broadcasting obligations.

He said that economic realities mean that the "future compact" with ITV over its PSB obligations will necessarily be "much more limited, explicit, transparent and flexible".

Currie questioned the validity of the market research the BBC had done to back up its assertion of the licence fee creating a unique link between consumers and its PSB output, because they can see and hear where the money has been spent on the corporation's services.

He said the BBC has made some "evident leaps" in the single quantitative question it asked in a survey to reach this conclusion.

"You do not need a doctorate in market research to spot some evident leaps in the argument," Currie added.

He highlighted quantitative research that showed that even when prompted, 80% think the licence fee funds TV programmes on BBC1 and BBC2.

Only 60% of people believe the licence fee funds the BBC's digital services, only 50% that it funds its radio services, and just 40% that it funds the corporation's online services, Currie said.

"Deliberative research suggests that awareness about what the licence fee is used for is low… more research is on the way. For now the 'unique link' appears to be more an article of faith [rather] than an evidenced reality," he added.

However, Currie also said that Ofcom's view was "straightforward, you do not strengthen public service broadcasting by weakening the BBC".

The BBC's well rehearsed argument about the licence fee providing a unique link between consumers and its output has most recently been deployed to counter the idea of "top slicing" the corporation's income to pay for PSB content from other providers.

Top slicing was among the four future public service broadcasting funding scenarios laid out by Ofcom in the first stage of its PSB review, published earlier this year.

Currie said today that Ofcom had not come to any firm conclusions about how UK PSB should be funded in future. "Ofcom's thinking is very much open," he added.

He also said that Ofcom had not "ruled anything in or out" in terms of options for future PSB funding but had focused on the BBC licence fee because it had been "an issue of controversy".

ITV has been in discussions with Ofcom about its public service broadcasting remit and has estimated that the value of its regional analogue TV licences across England and Wales will be zero by 2010.

Currie said Ofcom had come to a different estimate of the costs versus benefits of holding the licences - which commit ITV to certain PSB output commitments in return for free spectrum - but forecast that the zero value point would still be crossed "well before" 2014.

"ITV may overstate the costs and understate the benefits. What is beyond doubt is that the value of PSB benefits drops rapidly… in these circumstances ITV's relationship with the nations poses particular challenges," he added.

"Political wishful thinking will not change those facts. [The] penny has not dropped until now, and not just in relation to ITV but to the advertiser-funded broadcasters as a whole," said Currie.

He insisted that Ofcom is not "letting ITV off", and that it has not been "hoodwinked" by ITV over its PSB commitments - "far from it".

"We would be delighted if the numbers looked different. But they don't. The current downturn will accentuate the pressures," said Currie.

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