The withdrawal of free television licences for over
75s should really be looked at in terms of how the BBC should raise money in
the first place. At present there is a universal flat rate tax on televisions
with some exemptions. What matters is not so much who is exempted as whether
this method of revenue raising makes any sense in a world with so many
television providers.
1.Taxation.
2. Subscription.
3. Advertising.
The BBC uses taxation. ITV uses advertising. Sky uses
subscription, advertising or a mixture of subscription and advertising. It
would also be possible to rely on donation. This works for some media
organisations, the Guardian springs to mind, but it is hard to imagine the BBC
being able to raise anything like its present revenue by means of donation.
I don’t watch much television, but I know that it is
important for many people, especially older people who might be living on their
own. The BBC has faults. I find it to have a soft left, PC tone. I strongly
suspect that the vast majority of BBC employees and presenters vote for left of
centre parties and support staying in the EU. I find much of BBC output to be
unintelligent, but I also recognise that on national occasions we all turn to
the BBC and that it would be a great pity if it didn’t survive.
Thirty of forty years ago the licence fee made a
certain sense. There were only three channels and almost anyone who owned a TV
would watch a lot of the BBC. Funding could have come from Central Government
by means of a grant, but it would still in the end have been coming from
taxation. Nothing is free.
Today however it is possible to watch “TV” online.
There are endless satellite or cable channels and it is easy to imagine someone
who has to pay for a TV licence rarely if ever watching the BBC. It could well be argued that this is no
different from healthy people having to pay for the NHS or childless people
having to pay for schools. We all pay for things through taxation that we personally
don’t use. But is a TV licence the most cost-effective way of raising revenue?
Why doesn’t the BBC offer a subscription model of
raising revenue? It is clearly possible for it to do so. If Sky can charge
viewers to watch its programmes, then the BBC could do so also. The advantage
of this method of raising revenue would be that there would be no need for TV
detector vans to roam the country looking for licence fee dodgers. There would
be no need to take people to court for failing to pay their licence.
It would also be possible to partially fund the BBC
through advertising. At present between its programmes the BBC has a long
“break” where it advertises its own programmes and services. This could easily
be replaced with real paid advertising. Within programmes their need be no
breaks, just as at present. Would anyone mind? Some might say that this make
the BBC vulgar and commercial? But much of its output is already commercial and
indistinguishable from ITV. I believe no one would mind adverts between BBC programmes.
It is also important that the BBC slims down. There is
no need whatever for it to fund such large numbers of channels and websites. It
is also unnecessary for an organization that depends on taxation revenue to pay
presenters and executives huge salaries. Presenters become famous and popular
because they work for the BBC. It would not be especially difficult to find
someone else to read the news, argue with politicians or talk about football
for far less than is spent at present.
If the BBC were funded by a mixture of advertising and
subscription it would have to care more than at present that it provided
programmes that people wanted to watch and viewpoints that more accurately
reflect those in the country. It could provide a core service of two TV
channels and four radio stations. It could have a single online news and
weather service. It could learn to live within its means.
The cost of paying for the BBC could in this way be
reduced, so that it would no longer be a problem either for the BBC or the
Government to give “free” subscriptions to the elderly. The benefit of doing so
in terms of providing vulnerable people with the television they rely on, would
far outweigh the relatively trivial cost of doing so.
In a few years a television and a computer will be
indistinguishable. Each will stream television over the Internet. There will be
no more televisions to tax. Change is coming whether the BBC wants it or not.
Now is the time to find a sustainable long-term model of funding that
safeguards what the BBC does best. The fact that it could keep television free
for the over 75s at the expense of overpaid and hypocritical social-justice
warriors like Gary Lineker would just be a bonus.