The BBC: Licence fee or subscription?
The BBC’s licence fee should be scrapped in favour of a subscription model to ensure its creativity in the future, according to David Elstein, chairman of the Broadcasting Policy Group.
Elstein, who also headed up Channel Five at one stage, believes the future of the corporation lies in a voluntary subscription charge, which would encourage creativity and investment in high-quality content.
In 2004, the Broadcasting Policy Group recommended replacing the licence fee in this way and suggested establishing a small, separate public service broadcasting fund to fill the gaps in market provisions.
The recommendation unsurprisingly sparked criticism from the BBC, which accused the group of trying to marginalise it. At the time, the BBC saw itself as the ultimate PSB provider – producing both popular and specialist content.
However, Elstein disagreed. He defined PSB simply as content that “society valued, but which the market failed to provide”. The Policy Group therefore considered the likes of Eastenders and Blue Planet as programmes that could be funded by alternative means.
Looking at the future of the BBC now – a subject that has been heavily-debated recently, particularly following James Murdoch’s grueling attack on the corporation during the MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival last month – Elstein is ultimately of the same belief.
He feels that the BBC should have used the decline of PSB on commercial channels as an opportunity to step up and fill the gap, but instead argues that the BBC used this as a cover to cut back on its main channels and invest in non-analogue activities.
An Ofcom report shows that commercial network spending fell by 8% between 2004 and 2008, while “shockingly, despite the BBC’s inflation-proofed guaranteed income, the decline in spending on BBC One and BBC Two was far greater: 13%,” according to Elstein.
He claims there has been a shift from investment in traditional PSB terrestrial services to digital channels and online activities. This, of course, helps to substantiate Elstein’s argument for a subscription model over the licence fee.
“Should Hollywood movies or music-driven radio services or premium sport be a charge on the licence fee?” he asks.
To Elstein, the public think they own a piece of the BBC because of the licence fee and therefore are within their right to moan when Strictly Come Dancing is scheduled against The X Factor and about the amount Jonathan Ross is paid. However, if the corporation was to adopt a subscription, similar to HBO for example, it would have more freedom to take creative risks. “If subscribers don’t like what they are getting, they can cancel,” he says.
Elstein believes the possibility of an incoming Conservative party could potentially turn things around but “the present Government will never get its head around the simple proposition that funding Newsnight through a universal and regressive tax is unjust, and that funding Eastenders by a compulsory charge is unnecessary”.