Licence fee is dumb, says former BBC boss
Ex-director-general Greg Dyke brands funding model ‘an anachronism’ and wants it to be scrapped
THE BBC licence fee is a “dumb” anachronism, Greg Dyke, the former director-general, said as he added his voice to those calling for it to be scrapped.
As the corporation prepares to fight for its future funding, Mr Dyke suggested that the licence fee has no place in the new television landscape. “The thing with the licence fee is: no one would come up with it as an idea today, would they? The idea that you have a compulsory tax on the TV set sitting in the corner is dumb,” he told the Financial Times, calling the funding model “an anachronism”.
The licence fee has existed since 1927, when it was a levy on wireless radios, and is now £154.50 per year. From this summer, over-75s will have to pay for it unless they qualify for Pension Credit.
Other former BBC bosses believe that the corporation should drastically slim down in order to justify the fee.
Mark Thompson, who stepped down as director-general in 2012, said the corporation needed to recapture viewers and listeners who have migrated to subscription services such as Netflix, and a younger generation for whom Youtube now has more brand recognition than the BBC.
“If that means prioritising streaming and mobile services and making painful choices about existing linear TV and radio, so be it. The BBC has placed bold bets on the future before. In the interests of the audiences it serves, it needs to take the radical path again,” Mr Thompson said.
Lord Grade, the former chairman, said the BBC must take “drastic” action to focus its activities. The corporation is desperate to attract younger viewers, after Ofcom warned that it is in danger of “losing a generation” to Youtube, streaming services and other media.
It plans to plough millions more into BBC Three, the youth channel that has lost a significant proportion of its audience since moving online four years ago. At a Commons select committee this week, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director-general, disclosed that BBC Two’s Victoria Derbyshire Show had been axed because it was mostly watched by a male, middle-aged audience.
“They are more male and older than you might think,” he said of the viewers.
“They are mainly over-55s, and it tends to attract less women and younger viewers than the average for news programmes.” He added that the programme cost £3 million to make yet its television audience is only 300,000.
At the hearing of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, Lord Hall was told that he faced a “public
relations iceberg” over the impending over-75s policy as he admitted that 90-year-olds could be hauled before the courts for non-payment.
John Nicolson of the SNP, a member of the committee, told Lord Hall at the parliamentary session: “Imagine the reputational damage. The distress caused to these old people.”
During the session, Clare Sumner, director of policy at the BBC, confirmed that over-75s may receive home visits from employees of Capita, the firm responsible for tracking down licence fee evaders.
However, she insisted that they would be “support workers” specially trained to deal with the elderly.