BBC may scrap free TV licences for the over-75s

THE BBC may force over75s to start paying for TV licences as it struggles to ‘make ends meet’.

Director-general Lord Tony Hall yesterday said the BBC has already cut all the ‘lowhanging fruit’ and that it will have to consider more radical action to make savings.

He warned MPs the broadcaster was reviewing whether pensioners over 75 should continue getting their £ 150.50a-year TV licences for free.

The Corporation is also considering cutting the number of new programmes it makes or axing services in a bid to save cash.

The Government used to foot the £750million annual bill for over-75s’ TV licences but has forced the BBC to start sharing the cost and to take it on in full from 2020.

At that point, the BBC will be free to scrap the free licences or rewrite the rules entirely.

Lord Hall told the digital, culture, media and sport select committee: ‘The concession, as it’s currently formulated, comes to an end in June 2020. We, the board, have got to decide what to replace it with.’

He added: ‘I can’t give you a guarantee it will continue. I can’t give you a guarantee what the board will decide.

One suggestion has been to ‘encourage’ the over-75s to pay on a voluntary basis.

Other ideas include means testing, raising the age of eligibility or making households pay where someone over 75 is living with younger people. The BBC has commissioned a report to investigate solutions, which is expected to be published before Christmas, and will hold a public consultation after that.

Lord Hall said it was possible the system ‘ could continue exactly as it is’ but this would take hundreds of millions a year out of the BBC’s £ 5billion annual income, placing it under huge financial pressure. He told the hearing in Salford the ‘easy savings’ had been made, adding: ‘I think we are at something of a turning point where we will need to be considering very, very carefully how we make ends meet over the coming years and what that means for the services we operate.’

Asked whether the BBC might reduce content on its channels, Lord Hall said: ‘Those are things that we’re looking at.’

The Corporation could do this by filling airtime with more repeats or by cutting back on relatively expensive programmes, such as dramas, in favour of cheaper categories like game shows. It could also save money by axing channels or radio stations or replacing them with online-only services.