8. How should the BBC be funded beyond 2016?

[french frank]

There are four obvious alternatives: licence fee, subscription, advertising, general taxation.

To me, advertising is the biggest no-no, not only because audiences obviously don't want adverts but mainly because the BBC, having a large slice of audience share, would attract advertisers but hit the existing commercials because available revenue wouldn't expand: companies only have so much in their budgets to spend on advertising.

General taxation has its attractions but it would be more tightly controlled than the licence fee. How would subscription affect relatively expensive services like Radio 3 and the Welsh and Gaelic services which have small audiences?

Does it have to be licence fee, faute de mieux?

[Roehre]

IMO a licence fee. Subscription or advertising means CFMisation of R3, general taxation that money which should be used for broadcasting (in the widest sense of the word) is diverted to other areas where governemental taxes are used generally.

[Russ]

Licence fee. A subs model would probably either result in the disappearance of niche channels, e.g. BBC4, R3, or be more expensive because of the extra admin and accounting walls between channels.

Russ

[jayne lee wilson]

If "Public Service Broadcasting" can still be "giving the public something they didn't know they wanted" then a Licence fee it is. But we may be approaching a time when both politicians and "public" (in all its selective diversity) don't really understand that anymore...

[french frank]

If "Public Service Broadcasting" can still be "giving the public something they didn't know they wanted" then a Licence fee it is. But we may be approaching a time when both politicians and "public" (in all its selective diversity) don't really understand that anymore...

That is touched on in one of the other questions. The only related point is: Who sets the level of the licence fee?

Is it the DCMS-government politicians/civil servants getting their heads together?

The other danger of having politicians involved at all is that you get diktats such as the BBC having to take on the cost of the World Service from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (=general taxation) as well as narrowly escaping having to fund free TV licences for the over-75s (again, general taxation at present). And all in the context of having a licence fee freeze. Much as I feel Mark Thompson was ... not a great ... DG, he did get lumbered with monumental problems (which he cheerfully added to).

[aeolium]

I still think general taxation is a fairer system and need not leave the BBC - or other public broadcaster - less independent. It is a public service and every other public service is funded by taxation. The recent licence fee settlement shows that it does not protect the BBC from the financial imperatives of a generally hostile government determined to reduce public spending. One way to protect the settlement under general taxation would be to have it arranged under special charter to represent a specific level of public spending, and it would rise or fall according to the general public spending level - this charter requiring a 2/3 majority in parliament to be amended.

My concern is to protect the poor and vulnerable, who may need TV and radio more than many, from a level of expenditure which may appear trivial to us but is not to them.

[french frank]

I agree (again). But it is a bit of a hostage to fortune: General taxation - if this that and the other...

Giving a free TV licence to people receiving certain benefits might actually work out cheaper than sending them to court and then jail for non payment! And where the government decides a particular service or benefit is necessary, the government finds the money (= the taxpayer not the licence-fee payer). The situation is at the moment that if husband and wife both have well-paid jobs one or the other of them is getting a free TV licence. And if they have grown-up children in employment still at home, they get free TV too. If there is no control over how many TV sets people have, the government does know how many taxpayers there are in a household, and (in theory!) how much they earn.

I think the adult population is roughly 50m but there are only about 25m households - so, not counting children, roughly half the population contributes nothing whereas c 90% (?) watch TV.

As a non licence fee payer, I think it fairer for me to contribute to the service as a 'public good' even though I don't watch TV, than for half the population to use it regularly free of charge.

[gurnemanz]

IMO a licence fee. Subscription or advertising means CFMisation of R3, general taxation that money which should be used for broadcasting (in the widest sense of the word) is diverted to other areas where governemental taxes are used generally.

I agree. For me it is good value. You can easily pay about the same for a trip for two to the Opera or a Premier League football match. BBC website has ads if you log in abroad. I wouldn't object too much if it also had ads from UK login to bolster income a bit.

[french frank]

I've seen the definition of 'citizenship' as viewing issues as a 'citizen' rather than a 'consumer', in the context of society at large rather than one's own personal circumstances.

[aeolium]

I agree. For me it is good value. You can easily pay about the same for a trip for two to the Opera or a Premier League football match. BBC website has ads if you log in abroad. I wouldn't object too much if it also had ads from UK login to bolster income a bit.

But for you it is - I presume - easily affordable. What if you were living on benefits, or were an under-75 pensioner living solely on the state pension?

This recent YouGov survey shows, as other surveys have consistently shown, that those in lower social groups (and therefore generally less well-off) are more inclined than not to find the licence fee not good value for money, whereas those in higher social groups invariably tend to find that it is good value. Why do you think that is?

[NB you have to scroll down a couple of pages to find the questions relating to the BBC]

[french frank]

One gripe I have about the BBC's own 'research' on questions like this (where the majority thinks the licence fee very good value) is they don't give information on how they recruit the interviewees (as they didn't, be it said, on Radio 3). It may be that the people most proactive in responding are also those most likely to watch BBC programmes. Complaints come from those who tend to watch ITV channels.

[Sir Velo]

I'm afraid I can't share the general enthusiasm for the licence fee. Subscription is a more equitable way of funding broadcasting these days. I find that the BBC's output across all its TV and radio channels, nowadays, is rarely of interest to me and certainly does not provide what I consider to be VFM. Moreover, we might even find that Radio 3 would provide a better service under a subscription based method of funding, as it is highly unlikely that the new breed of Radio 3 listener our Rog is keen on attracting would be willing to subscribe to it. As a result, only the diehard classical music and arts aficionadi would be potential subscribers; this would force R3 management to focus on what listeners want.

An analogue can be drawn from the latest pronouncement from Gramophone's new owners who realise that to keep the publication as a going concern they need to consult subscribers. The subscription based channel, SkyArts, while by no means perfect, provides much high quality programming, with minimal advertising and none of the inane prattle from presenters that is increasingly pervasive on Radio 3.

[Thropplenoggin]

I'm afraid I can't share the general enthusiasm for the licence fee. Subscription is a more equitable way of funding broadcasting these days. I find that the BBC's output across all its TV and radio channels, nowadays, is rarely of interest to me and certainly does not provide what I consider to be VFM. Moreover, we might even find that Radio 3 would provide a better service under a subscription based method of funding, as it is highly unlikely that the new breed of Radio 3 listener our Rog is keen on attracting would be willing to subscribe to it. As a result, only the diehard classical music and arts aficionadi would be potential subscribers; this would force R3 management to focus on what listeners want.

An analogue can be drawn from the latest pronouncement from Gramophone's new owners who realise that to keep the publication as a going concern they need to consult subscribers. The subscription based channel, SkyArts, while by no means perfect, provides much high quality programming, with minimal advertising and none of the inane prattle from presenters that is increasingly pervasive on Radio 3.

I am of a like mind, Sir Velo. I have recently returned from close to a decade abroad. I stumped up the license fee in May. It is now October. I watch about two-four programmes a week on television, some of which won't even be BBC programmes, and the ones that are may be repeats of repeats of repeats inspiring vertiginous notions of infinite regress (Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?). My Radio 3 listening is mostly of the podcast variety (itself an imperfect service (see Caliban's laments passim of snipped BaLs, CotW). What have I paid all that money for, exactly?

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem with subscription would be reduced access to what Radio 3 (for instance) offers, or once offered those who otherwise would not know, and its ghettoisation on behalf of a remaining but thereby ever-shrinking more knowledgeable minority

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I watch about two-four programmes a week on television, some of which won't even be BBC programmes, and the ones that are may be repeats of repeats of repeats inspiring vertiginous notions of infinite regress (Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?). My Radio 3 listening is mostly of the podcast variety (itself an imperfect service (see Caliban's laments passim of snipped BaLs, CotW). What have I paid all that money for, exactly?

Say 3 TV progs a week over a 52 week year = 156 TV progs. At a Licence Fee of £145.50, that means you're paying just 93p per TV programme. Add in the Radio programmes you listen to on the imperfect Podcast system (and even though you don't have to pay for Radio content, it is still funded from the Licence Fee) and "all that money" seems a bit harsh.

The cheapest Sky subscription package that I could find is £21.50 per month - which is more than £100 per year more than the cost of the Licence Fee, and doesn't include Radio programmes or the cost of running the various BBC Orchestras and Vocal groups.

Aeolie's point about the cost to those on benefits is valid, as is frenchie's suggestion that the free Licence should be made available for people in receipt of some of these benefits. But I doubt that Subscriptions would serve anyone's interests: I think it's much more likely that the Beeb would discontinue its serious Music provision completely if it had to rely on the funds that came in from the few of us who seriously care about such provision.