I don't think either of those is a good idea. Now you're talking about making the BBC into a sort of subscription service which misses the whole point. It's a national resource that needs to be accessible by the whole population. Might a well just make it a specialty channel on your Sky box otherwise.

3.5 million in-person visits. Wow. I'm not sure anyone's mentioned it, but since this conversation has slipped back to the BBC anyway, how much exactly is the license fee? If you're going to mention a per-product fee, do you know approximately how much is collected from each household or per-capita?

I stand by my assertion that this type of arts spending would better be funded from other tax moneys while having some protections in place to make sure funds aren't diverted to new helicopters, etc. Immediately that would remove the overhead of mailing campaigns, signage, enforcement manpower and vehicle fleet.