The BBC’s director-general, Tony Hall, is a man in a hurry. As one of the oldest DGs to be appointed, and already in receipt of his BBC pension, the 64-year-old is acutely aware that the corporation’s charter has less than two years to run, and that the licence fee – the BBC’s bedrock for the 93 years of its existence – has no long-term future (according to a report from a cross-party committee of MPs published last week).
In a speech on Monday, Hall claimed that the committee had given the licence fee at least another 10 years. Actually, that was wishful thinking – the report said no such thing: only that in the 2020s, a new system would have to be in place – and the pace of events strongly suggests the beginning of the next decade is the back-stop date.
Hall set out the case for switching from the licence fee to a broadcasting levy on all households, irrespective of whether they have a television, watch or listen to BBC programmes, or want to pay for the BBC. This was one of the options canvassed by MPs, the other being the new Finnish system of a percentage surcharge on income tax, with both a floor and a ceiling.
