Ratings or Reithian Values?

The big Autumn series on BBC2 will be Heroes, an American series about ordinary people who find that they have superpowers.
Apparently it's quite good (It was the top-rating series in the US last year) , but it's controversial because the BBC paid at least £400,000 per episode - for a 30 episode series. It was in a big bidding war with other companies and outbid them to get its hands on a winner.
Is this a good use of license-payers' money? To pay a huge amount for something which viewers would otherwise be able to see elsewhere. they could have funded several home-grown series with this money.
The BBC is caught in a trap - spend on crowd-pleasers and they're accused of letting down their Reithian heritage, or fail to buy crowd-pleasers, and they are no longer maintaining their popularity.