How to really save the BBC |
Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC has accidentally done Britain a favour. One ‘fake news’ moment involving the US president has turned what would normally be a media-page squabble into a question on the doorstep: should every household in the UK continue to pay to receive a live television signal, enforceable by law, to fund the BBC? In a world of monthly subscriptions for global streamers, the licence fee has never felt more like an anachronistic tithe.
The British public are fed up with the licence fee
BBC Charter renewal – due at the end of 2027 – has become an election issue. There’s a chasm that needs to be bridged between the BBC’s past and the future. For all the deserved criticism of the licence fee, it’s vital for the creative health and wealth of the UK that there is a publicly funded broadcaster with deep pockets. At the moment, that publicly funded broadcaster is the BBC – and the BBC is the engine that drives most of the UK’s creative sector’s value. Content production is one of our few real growth industries – and the BBC has played a vital role in ensuring its success.
But the British public are fed up with the licence fee. Take up has been falling by two percentage points a year for the last seven years. It now stands at 83 per cent. More and more UK households are saying they don’t watch live television – not just on the BBC, but also ITV, C4, C5 and even Sky Sports and Sky News – so they don’t need to pay for a TV licence.
If all that happens is a new ten-year Royal Charter with some tinkering around the edges (as Lisa Nandy’s Green Paper appears to be) then licence fee take up will be in the mid-60s by the next Charter’s end. It will be too late to save the UK’s creative economy and broadcasting independence.
As the government is grappling with the BBC’s existential crisis, at the same time it will likely whistle through a mortal blow to the UK’s broadcasting and creative independence. Philadelphia-based Comcast, owner of NBC and Sky amongst very many others, is about to add ITV to its global media assets for £1.6 billion.
Here, hiding in plain sight, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the government to re-tool the BBC to make it a publicly funded........