How to get the most out of a universal BBC licence fee
Opinion
There should be proper discussion about where BBC cuts should fall, rather than well-loved personalities and programmes simply disappearing without a trace, Ray Snoddy writes.
At long last we are beginning to get a feeling for what the BBC will look like in future – or at least how the Corporation hopes it will look.
As we already knew, there will be fewer staff, well-loved programmes will disappear, and possibly even television channels and radio stations will go – to save £500m by 2028.
It will be a smaller BBC, due to have its new Royal Charter in 2029 – at least 2,000 people smaller.
We now know that Matt Brittin, the former Google executive getting into his stride as BBC director general, wants to take BBC content, particularly news, onto Netflix, YouTube, Spotify and Instagram- in search of missing audiences.
It seems the aim is to strike a Faustian pact – that everyone, every household, should pay for the BBC- but in return BBC programming should, as far as possible, be available everywhere.
It is beginning to look like the appointment of Brittin, who had no experience of conventional broadcasting but knows a lot about social media, may not have been such an outrageous appointment after all.
Brittin has had to face a few unyielding truths since taking over at one of the world’s leading public service broadcasters.
The rise of the streaming giants has been accompanied by decades of underfunding the BBC, in relative terms, by successive governments.
The starkest truth of all is the growing mismatch between those who use BBC services – around 94% of the population- and the 80% who actually pay the licence fee.
A fixed pattern of licence fee negotiations
In Japan, almost everyone pays the equivalent of the licence fee, even though it is voluntary, out of a sense of civic duty or to avoid public shame.
Clearly, we cannot rely on such a strong civic sense in the UK, so we need other methods.
For those who have watched successive rounds of BBC licence fee negotiations over the past 50 years or so, a fixed pattern has emerged.
The starting point is that the licence fee is seen as an unfair regressive tax and must be replaced. Next come months, if not years, spent going through all the alternatives until they fall by the wayside one by one.
And then came the inevitable conclusion – the licence fee was declared the least bad way to fund a national public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
No longer. As Brittin quickly perceived, the BBC is now “being held back” by the licence fee that “is no longer fit for purpose.”
The declining percentage of people prepared to pay it, alas, demonstrates that it is so and that radical action is now necessary.
This effectively means that years of often fruitless discussion with government on the financing of the BBC boils down to one question with one inevitable answer.
Is the aim to have a national broadcaster that transmits, encourages and promotes British culture and a society based on a bedrock of reliable information?
The only workable solution
If so, the only workable solution in today’s world of endless information, much of it false, is a universal payment system.
It is time to set aside other distractions and focus on the best way to collect the equivalent of a universal licence fee.
It could be collected from trillion-dollar social media companies such as Meta and Facebook, which, as it happens, seem to have little interest in paying local taxes.
The BBC could also be funded through a charge on broadband subscriptions or even electricity bills.
A viable mechanism can be found.
As this would be the most radical change in the BBC’s nearly 104 years of existence, the new funding method should also be tiered to ensure that those on social security pay at least a lower charge.
Whatever precise funding mechanism is chosen, it should mean both lower evasion and collection charges and should be a lower charge than the present £180 licence fee. It must also raise enough to underpin the finances, going forward, of a BBC that should be at least as big as the diminished Corporation that staggers across the line at the end of 2028.
There must be an end to a future of endless cuts that would ultimately send the BBC into near irrelevance in the face of the works of the tech billionaires.
Brittin’s idea that BBC content should be widely available across the internet – particularly news- is a good one, although there could be a rights quagmire on many entertainment shows.
Having a BBC button on controllers along the lines of the Netflix button, another Brittin suggestion, would obviously also help with visibility.
Brittin’s performance in saving £500m at the cost of 2,000 jobs is much less impressive.
It is a piecemeal process that proceeds by leaks – TV sports news bulletins canned here, 36 jobs going there.
It would be much more rational to set out a plan for the cuts and which channels and programmes are due to be cut, so there can be a proper discussion and debate.
Presumably BBC 3 and BBC 4 are up for the chop – again
The bizarre history of BBC 3 is worth remembering. It went online only in 2016 before having to be brought back as a broadcast channel again in 2022. Presumably it may be back online again.
Brittin should tangle with BBC 4 at his peril. Some of the BBC’s best programmes are still to be found there despite its squeezed budget.
The BBC should also be careful not to alienate its most loyal supporters – those who are no longer young, and many of whom may not be online.
The main point is that there should be proper discussion in advance about where the cuts should fall – rather than well-loved personalities and programmes, such as Live at The Apollo or Football Focus, simply disappearing without a trace.
The BBC should also care about how it treats its most popular programme franchises, such as Strictly Come Dancing.
My household is one of the millions of viewers the programme has carelessly lost since last time.
And returning to two presenters from the unnecessary three could save the salaries of a considerable number of hard- pressed news producers about to lose their jobs.
After all, every little helps.
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.