What to do about the BBC licence fee.
How the BBC can learn from ITV
The government has recently announced that the cost of the BBC licence fee will rise by £10.50, equal to the September inflation rate of 6.6%. This is about £5 less than the BBC or the Office for Budget Responsibility had expected – traditionally the BBC licence fee rises by the average of inflation in the previous year. There was no rise in either of the last two years.
A compulsory licence fee is increasingly anomalous. When I was young the BBC accounted for two of the three channels available. The creation of Channel 4, Channel 5 and later a host of free and subscription digital channels means that the BBC, while important, accounts for a much smaller share of the television we watch. It is time for change.
For many years, the only possible change meant introducing advertising between and during programmes, on the ITV model. I don’t think that is the right approach.
I propose…