The future of the ABC as a commercial-free media service that is accessible to all in the community is under serious threat. The creation of an even more powerful commercial division at the ABC that will consider the possibility of introducing advertisements on ABC websites and charging for some of the broadcaster's at present free services should alarm everyone ("ABC looks at charge by byte brigade", February 8).

While these are not the first steps, they are an escalation in what appears to be an agenda to steadily commercialise the ABC, and a shift by the ABC to deny Australians universal access to their national broadcaster.

Advertising would undermine the ABC's independence. As the saying goes: he who pays the piper calls the tune. The SBS experience demonstrates the inevitable pressure to extend advertising once it is introduced, and the excuse it provides government to withdraw further from its responsibility to fund public broadcasting.

Like television and radio, technologies such as online, podcasting and vodcasting are simply another means of delivering content. Free from time constraints, their significance is growing as a means to access ABC programming in our busy lives.

The ABC has rightly recognised the importance of these new technologies as an integral part of public broadcasting. It cannot, with any credibility, then turn around and charge for them. It is not acceptable for the national public broadcaster to provide a two-tier service, with some services being available only to those who can afford to pay. In addition to denying some in the community access to its content, the ABC's place in Australian life will be diminished.

The ABC board and executive's ever-growing commercial outlook is diverting the ABC's focus from what it exists to do. The national public broadcaster is not meant to be a business. It was conceived as a service to the public - an independent educational and cultural institution that enriches the country and the lives of its citizens. One which has already been paid for through our taxes.

Judith Rodriguez president, Friends of the ABC (Vic)