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The Guardian view on the licence fee: a time to rally round the BBC The Guardian view on the licence fee: a time to rally round the BBC
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The licence fee costs 40p per day. It pays for BBC News, the weather app, Radios 4 and 6 Music. The Proms, Wimbledon and women’s football. Local radio. Strictly, Top Gear, Sherlock. Children’s programmes. The World Service. Ninety-seven per cent of us use it for 18 hours a week. The wonder of the licence fee is that it is a shared resource. We put our £145.50 into the same pot and it comes back to us as information, education and entertainment – superabundantly. “It is a reversal of the natural law, that the more one takes, the less there is for others … There is no limit to the amount that may be drawn off … it may be shared by all alike, for the same outlay … There is no first or third class,” wrote John Reith in 1924. The licence fee costs 40p per day. It pays for BBC News, the weather app, Radios 4 and 6 Music. The Proms, Wimbledon and women’s football. Local radio. Strictly, Top Gear, Sherlock. Children’s programmes. The World Service. Ninety-seven per cent of us use it for 18 hours a week. The wonder of the licence fee is that it is a shared resource. We put our £145.50 into the same pot and it comes back to us as information, education and entertainment – superabundantly. “It is a reversal of the natural law, that the more one takes, the less there is for others … There is no limit to the amount that may be drawn off … it may be shared by all alike, for the same outlay … There is no first or third class,” wrote John Reith in 1924.
But the licence fee is under attack. Its critics call it a regressive tax (as if we did not, as a society, accept many regressive taxes, such as council tax). It is also opposed by those who believe that the BBC should not be there for everyone, but should operate only as market-failure mechanism, offering a high-minded but marginal diet like National Public Radio in the US. In an age of media choice, the argument goes, it is no longer necessary to provide something for everyone. Commercial competitors could provide Strictly, and the BBC does so only in a circular motion to prop up the idea of the licence fee and thus its funding. But the licence fee is under attack. Its critics call it a regressive tax (as if we did not, as a society, accept many regressive taxes, such as council tax). It is also opposed by those who believe that the BBC should not be there for everyone, but should operate only as market-failure mechanism, offering a high-minded but marginal diet like National Public Radio in the US. In an age of media choice, the argument goes, it is no longer necessary to provide something for everyone. Commercial competitors could provide Strictly, and the BBC does so only in a circular motion to prop up the idea of the licence fee and thus its funding.
What is pernicious about these objections, supposedly arising from principle, is that they frequently veil envy of the BBC from its business competitors, whether Rupert Murdoch or the Daily Mail. No less disingenuous than these attacks on the principle of the licence fee is the gradual chipping away at it. It is possible that the chancellor, George Osborne, will, in his 8 July budget, force the BBC to take on paying the licence fee for the over-75s, costing the BBC around £600m per year. Decriminalisation of licence-fee evasion, which the prime minister appears to support, would cost another £200m. The BBC has already shouldered the costs of the World Service – £450m a year. The licence fee has been endlessly “top-sliced”, plundered by government to pay for industrial policy such as superfast broadband. The more the BBC’s licence fee is diminished, the less excellent the BBC’s service, the less public support it will receive, the smaller it will become. There are some who welcome that: it means more rents in the fabric through which commerce can squeeze. Related: Remember Sir Isaac Shoenberg’s role in development of TV and the BBC | Letters
What is pernicious about these objections, supposedly arising from principle, is that they frequently veil envy of the BBC from its business competitors, whether Rupert Murdoch or the Daily Mail. No less disingenuous than these attacks on the principle of the licence fee is the gradual chipping away at it. It is possible that the chancellor, George Osborne, will, in his 8 July budget, force the BBC to take on paying the licence fee for the over-75s, costing the BBC around £600m per year. Decriminalisation of licence-fee evasion, which the prime minister appears to support, would cost another £200m. The BBC has already shouldered the costs of the World Service – £450m a year. The licence fee has been endlessly “top-sliced”, plundered by government to pay for industrial policy such as superfast broadband. The more the BBC’s licence fee is diminished, the less excellent the BBC’s service, the less public support it will receive, the smaller it will become. There are some who welcome that: it means more rents in the fabric through which commerce can squeeze.
The licence fee needs to be modernised. A charge for owning a box in the corner of the room, when television is now delivered by myriad means, is becoming anachronistic. But the principle of the licence fee must be affirmed. The BBC has not always been its own best advocate. But it is important to remember that every misstep by the BBC is leaped upon with eagerness by its enemies: as far as the rightwing press is concerned, the BBC is not simply another organisation to be reported on, it is one that for commercial reasons needs to be ground into the dust.The licence fee needs to be modernised. A charge for owning a box in the corner of the room, when television is now delivered by myriad means, is becoming anachronistic. But the principle of the licence fee must be affirmed. The BBC has not always been its own best advocate. But it is important to remember that every misstep by the BBC is leaped upon with eagerness by its enemies: as far as the rightwing press is concerned, the BBC is not simply another organisation to be reported on, it is one that for commercial reasons needs to be ground into the dust.
The BBC stands at a junction. A green paper on its future is expected by the end of the month. Charter renewal, the moment when an empowered Conservative government will set the scope and scale of the BBC, is expected to be signed off next summer. The government has the opportunity to marginalise the BBC. Or it has the chance to recognise it for what it is: envied across the world; part of the fabric of British society; a precious public space through which every man, woman and child in this country can roam freely – crucially, without anyone trying to sell them anything. This moment is, in short, about deciding what sort of society we wish to be. The way to stop the government reducing the BBC to a mere market-failure organisation is to make it clear that to do so would be politically disastrous. Now is the time to forget grumbles about the corporation. It is time to rally round the BBC.The BBC stands at a junction. A green paper on its future is expected by the end of the month. Charter renewal, the moment when an empowered Conservative government will set the scope and scale of the BBC, is expected to be signed off next summer. The government has the opportunity to marginalise the BBC. Or it has the chance to recognise it for what it is: envied across the world; part of the fabric of British society; a precious public space through which every man, woman and child in this country can roam freely – crucially, without anyone trying to sell them anything. This moment is, in short, about deciding what sort of society we wish to be. The way to stop the government reducing the BBC to a mere market-failure organisation is to make it clear that to do so would be politically disastrous. Now is the time to forget grumbles about the corporation. It is time to rally round the BBC.