The BBC was today plunged into a storm after director general Greg Dyke declared he was considering putting adverts on its online service.

The move was branded "a total scandal" by commercial rivals who claim it is an abuse of the corporation's public service status.

Emap Online managing director Roger Green said: "It is a complete disgrace to use licence payers money to compete with commercial publishers. If Greg needed the shortfall. He should spend less on irrelevant online publishing activities such as the gardening website."

The BBC's rivals believe it is outrageous that the service, which costs £23m of licence payers money, should now be allowed compete for advertising revenue.

One online sales executive said: "This is too horrific to contemplate. A move like this will even kill off Freeserve. It will sweep up whatever little advertising is in the marketplace."

Advertising on the BBC's online service has been mooted before but the move has always been thwarted by opponents who say it is an abuse of the BBC's public service status.

But advertising bosses today welcomed the move. They have long lobbied for the corporation to be opened up to commercials and they see this as a first step towards getting ad breaks on BBC1 and BBC2.

Bob Wooton, director of media and advertising affairs at the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, said: "This is not surprising, it's a question that has been asked with increasingly regularity.

"We advocate a mixed economy funding of the BBC and this is a small step in the way we are seeking. The money at stake is buttons."

BBC Online is widely considered one of the best services in the UK and is one of the top 10 internet sites in the country.

Last year's government-ordered report on the BBC by economist Gavyn Davies recommended that BBC Online should look at taking advertising on international services.But it stopped short of recommending full-blown ad sales across all BBC Onlione's activities.

In an interview in today's Financial Times, Mr Dyke made it clear that he is exploring the possibility of adverts on the domestic services.

Mr Dyke said that BBC News and BBC Education sites would remain free and without adverts.

But he admitted that BBC strategists were looking at finding a way of persuading the public and politicians that advertising was a way of boosting the BBC's revenue on other sites such as those dedicated to hit shows like EastEnders or The Human Body which attract a huge number of users.

He said they were looking at "what are the commercial opportunities and what are the public service obligations".

On the question of advertising on BBC Online, Mr Dyke said: "There are commercial opportunities, but how big they are and how much they are worth - that is what we are looking at."

Emap's Roger Green said he would be happy to compete with the BBC as long as it was on a equal footing. He said it would be acceptable if the BBC was banned from using the licence fee to fund the online service.

A spokesman for the BBC insisted the corporation was only "bouncing around" the idea of Online adverts.

He said: "The BBC has been charged with maximising revenues . We've been given tough targets of internal savings and generating commercial revenues of some £1bn over the next seven years, as part of its licence fee settlement. You'd expect the BBC to explore all options to bring more public service programmes to viewers and listeners - some may come to fruition, some may not."