A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
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A <strong>FUTURE</strong> <strong>FOR</strong> <strong>PUBLIC</strong> <strong>SERVICE</strong> <strong>TELEVISION</strong><br />
arm’s length. But recent history suggests that<br />
the licence fee does not make the BBC any<br />
less vulnerable to interference and it is also a<br />
notably regressive form of taxation, charged<br />
at the same rate to every household in the<br />
country.<br />
So a new mechanism must be found, one that<br />
is fair, transparent and likely to remain robust<br />
for decades to come. The government initially<br />
outlined three options ahead of charter<br />
review: a reformed licence fee, a household<br />
payment, or a hybrid licence fee and<br />
subscription model. 148 (Advertising was rightly<br />
rejected by the government – it would be<br />
resented by viewers and would not even be<br />
welcomed by rival broadcasters). 149 The idea<br />
of a household payment merited scarcely<br />
a mention in the white paper. Instead, on<br />
the basis that “it commands wider public<br />
support than any other alternative model”, 150<br />
the government agreed to continue with the<br />
licence fee until 2027 with the proviso that<br />
anyone using the iPlayer would also have<br />
to pay the licence fee, thereby ending the<br />
loophole that has meant that those using<br />
the iPlayer only for catch-up rather than live<br />
sreaming (and who do not already own a TV<br />
set) do not have to pay the licence fee.<br />
The white paper says that while there are<br />
no plans to replace the licence fee with<br />
subscription funding, it is very supportive<br />
of a pilot project developed by the BBC “to<br />
“consider whether elements of subscription<br />
could provide a more sustainable funding<br />
model in the longer term.” 151 Some have<br />
argued that a hybrid model will have<br />
potential benefits in terms of a possible<br />
uplift to BBC income and a fairer distribution<br />
of the costs of new services to those who<br />
use them most. However, we believe that<br />
such a hybrid system would be a worrying<br />
precedent in which subscription may come<br />
to be ‘normalised’, thus undermining one of<br />
the central platforms of the BBC: the fact<br />
that its services are free at the point of use<br />
and thereby accessible to all. Even a partial<br />
subscription model could be the ‘thin end of<br />
the wedge’ allowing for a full subscription<br />
model at a later date which, by definition,<br />
would exclude those unable to pay from<br />
whatever services were placed behind the<br />
paywall. This is all the more likely given that<br />
closing the iPlayer loophole will require<br />
conditional access technologies which will<br />
make a shift towards subscription that much<br />
easier.<br />
We are firmly against changing the BBC from<br />
a household charge service to one based<br />
on per-user controlled access. It is the very<br />
universality of the licence fee that guarantees<br />
the BBC scale and allows it to aspire to<br />
reach everyone in the UK. Indeed, the mere<br />
existence of a pilot subscription scheme may<br />
persuade the government that, should licence<br />
fee collection rates continue to fall despite<br />
the closure of the ‘iPlayer loophole’, a pay TV<br />
model may then become the ‘default’ position<br />
for funding the BBC. In this situation, the lure<br />
of portability – the ability of users to log in to<br />
BBC content wherever they are in the world –<br />
needs a strong and imaginative response.<br />
We believe that change is necessary in order<br />
to future-proof the BBC against ongoing<br />
technological change and that the ‘television<br />
licence fee’ is an outdated symbol of a<br />
broadcast landscape in which the TV set was<br />
the only receiver available. So we believe<br />
that the further extension of the licence fee<br />
148<br />
BBC green paper, 2015, pp. 102-105.<br />
149<br />
Ibid., p. 101.<br />
150<br />
BBC white paper, 2016, p. 92.<br />
151<br />
Ibid., p. 103.<br />
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