A Subscription Only BBC Would Lose £500 Million
The BBC claims that it would lose over £500 million in revenue if it were transformed into a subscription only service, resulting in the loss of quality programmes and an inability to meet its social and political obligations.
The Measuring the Value of the BBC survey claims that ten million households would lose access to the BBC under any proposed subscription models, resulting in a lack of quality services and public service content. Survey respondents also attached high value to the BBC’s services and considered high quality programming as vital.
Installing a subscription model in place of the licence fee as a way of sourcing funding for the BBC has been proposed by several media commentators over the last few months, including Chime Communications boss Lord Tim Bell and prominent media expert David Elstein.
The latter’s proposal to break-up the BBC and abolish its £2 billion licence fee entirely was included in an influential report to the Conservative party, recommending that the UK’s commercial broadcasters be allowed to bid for funding to make public service programmes (see Tory Report Calls For Reduction Of BBC Licence Fee).
However, according to the BBC’s wide-ranging research, more than 80% of the UK population agree that the BBC is worth the £121 licence fee. Even more impressive is the claim by the BBC that 50% of the survey respondents value the Corporation at twice the current licence fee.
Last month media super-regulator Ofcom published controversial proposals for the launch of an entirely new public service broadcaster to be run by commercial operators as a rival to the BBC in the digital age. The radical suggestion has been put forward as part of a wide-ranging set of proposals designed to protect the future of public service broadcasting as Britain prepares to switch off the ageing analogue television signal (see Ofcom Plans New Public Service Channel To Rival BBC).
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