Is the BBC really the saviour of the local media or just trying to keep the licence fee?

Tim Luckhurst in The Independent has questioned just how generous the BBC is being with its offer to share its resources with local newspapers, TV and radio stations.
He writes: "The offer appears generous. Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, is keen and so is Ofcom. Cash-strapped local news providers will gain access to BBC audio and video. Their reporters will get access to the BBC school of journalism.
"ITV may move local journalists into BBC buildings. Local news will be revived by a big dollop of generosity from the licence fee. But is the BBC really being generous or is it offering cash-strapped commercial rivals a sinister death cuddle from which they will emerge impotent if they survive at all?"
He argues: "The BBC is masquerading as the saviour of British journalism, but that is not its real objective. (BBC director general Mark) Thompson's apparent generosity to rivals disguises his pursuit of the BBC's most intransigent conviction: that the licence fee must endure and that all of it must go to the BBC."
Luckhurst, a former BBC journalist who is now head of the University of Kent's Centre for Journalism, adds: "The BBC's editorial model is incompatible with true diversity. That is why it has never been allowed to function as the nation's sole provider of news. If it was not wedded to the assumption that it alone can provide public interest journalism the BBC would acknowledge this and drop its patronising offer of an Anschluss in local news.
"There is an obvious alternative. By top-slicing the licence fee the Government could create a fund to support local journalism independent of the BBC. The corporation would benefit if it did. It has always been at its best when faced by robust, independent competition."