Is there life left in the licence fee?

If you accept the tangible and intangible social benefits of having a truly national broadcaster, then all other issues remain interesting but of secondary importance, writes Raymond Snoddy.

Prepare yourself for a couple of years of hearing endless nonsense about the future of the BBC, both from within and without. In fact, everyone can save themselves a lot of time and effort by answering one very simple question.

Is it in the interests of the UK to have a universal broadcasting service available to everyone and paid for by virtually everyone – the media equivalent of the National Health Service – or not?

If the answer is yes then the licence fee is the most workable way of funding such a service for the foreseeable future; or as the Commons Media Select Committee put it last week, there is “no better alternative for funding the BBC in the near term.”

There are serious flaws with all the obvious alternatives – advertising, taxation and subscription, particularly subscription.

Long-term supporters of subscription such as David Elstein, the former chief executive of Channel 5, are already in the field. People can voluntarily decide whether or not they want to pay for the BBC and a significant percentage of the population would freely choose to do so, goes this argument.

It would, however, end forever the idea of a national broadcaster and with it an important contributor in creating a national debate, national cohesion.

Subscription would inevitably result in either a considerably smaller BBC or a more expensive one. Not everyone would voluntarily subscribe, therefore almost certainly less money would be available for public broadcasting. The higher charge option would price out the poor.

That money raised by a universal fee, and the training and opportunity it provides, is one of the reasons why the UK has one of the world’s leading media industries.

Those who argue for a subscription-funded BBC are also usually talking mainly about television and forget to mention all the other things the BBC does for general culture, orchestras, radio, and so on. Would you have a separate subscription for Radio 4 of which there is no equal in the world? How would that work? And how would you fund the World Service, now paid for by the licence fee?

If you accept the tangible and intangible social benefits of having a truly national broadcaster, then all other issues remain interesting but of secondary importance – efficiency, regulation, impartiality, scale.

The report of the Media Select Committee inevitably was a bit of a curate’s egg, as indeed are all such reports. But it did get the big issue right even though confusion was caused in the analysis of statements that the Committee saw no long-term future of the licence fee.

That the BBC must prepare for a change “in the 2020s” is a rather flexible concept. If we are talking about the end of the 2020s that is 15 years off.

Lord Hall, the BBC director-general, is right when he said this week that there is probably another decade of life in the licence fee. After that a household charge, which is not tied to any particular device such as a TV set, or the Irish or German model may turn out to be the answer.

The numbers that flow from BARB viewing figures are very instructive. They show that change is indeed happening in viewing habits but at a remarkably stately pace given the scale of the options on offer.

The recent Thinkbox dressing up of basic BARB figures found that last year 98.4 per cent of all viewing still took place on a television set and that television’s weekly reach was unchanged at 94.2 per cent.

Total average daily TV viewing was down by 4.5 per cent but still accounts for a whopping 3 hours, 44 minutes and 30 seconds per day per person. Viewing on other screens such as tables and laptops grew by 17 per cent but from a low base.

Trends have to be observed and honoured but over-anticipating radical change can be a fundamental error too.

Other Select Committee thoughts range from some subscription services on the BBC, decriminalising of the licence fee and its extension to other devices, top-slicing, a smaller range of BBC services and abolition of BBC Trust.

Top slicing is a thoroughly bad idea. Why, for instance, give BBC licence fee money to ITV, a company that has just announced underlying profits of £730 million to do what it should be doing anyway.

Replace the BBC Trust with a unitary management system, which failed last time, and set up a new Commission with the power to fine the BBC? So we, the viewers, would have our licence fee money removed and go into whose coffers? Bonkers.

Smaller range of services? Why? Surveys show it’s not what the public wants and the BBC gets smaller every day in relation to the enormous international internet players.

Decriminalise the licence fee? Fine but how exactly do you compensate for the subsequent rise in non-payment which the BBC estimates could cost £200 million a year.

Some subscription services? No you can’t have two-tier payments if you want to maintain a universal service. And you can indeed extend the licence fee to cover catch-up programmes viewed on laptops but a tricky one to enforce without criminal sanctions.

So, good in parts from the MPs but what about Lord Hall’s grand vision to re-invent the BBC for the Internet age. High marks for the rhetoric but the reality might prove a little more challenging.

Lord Hall has decided to push ahead with plans to roll up most of BBC Production into a new wholly-owned subsidiary which will be open to unrestricted competition.

The BBC Trust, while it is still with us, can be sure to have a serious think about the longer-term consequences of such a plan and to properly scrutinise whether now is the time to close down BBC Three as a broadcast channel.

The app-based “myBBC revolution” which will, with permission, mine data and offer individual alerts and choices on programmes is an interesting idea. But isn’t there a danger that myBBC will simply take people in the direction of further fragmentation and individualism in society when the over-arching idea of the BBC director-general is that the BBC “is the place where the nation can come together”?

Discuss.

Maybe like the MPs on the Media Selection Committee Tony Hall has also produced a curate’s egg, albeit it a different one.