Tough times stress test arrangements, and ideas. One set of ideas that are failing their stress test, I believe, is a three-pronged attack on the BBC: on its irrelevance in a world of Netflix, on advancing a pay subscription model and, more immediately, on decriminalising the TV licence fee.
After the exhaustive process that led to the renewal of the BBC charter from 2017, the government pledged to leave the licence fee model intact to December 2027. Fully aware of that, Baroness Nicky Morgan, the then Culture Secretary, in February 2020, opened up an informal governmental review of the BBC’s existence, and revived a policy, to decriminalise TV licence fee evasion, put out for a hasty consultation that closes on 1 April.
The decriminalisation review is now led by former Culture Minister John Whittingdale who returned to Government as Minister of State for Media and Data and who previously described the licence fee as ‘worse than the poll tax’. Another key sponsor is Andrew Bridgen MP who calls for the entire licence fee to be scrapped and replaced by a pay subscription model that would make BBC services commercial-only.
