Free TV licence has been earned by our elderly

Over the past couple of decades the population of this country has increased considerably, as has life expectancy. As a result the BBC has received an increased income from licence payers.

It follows that much of that income will have come from people now in their mid-70s, those who, as you reported last week, are threatened with having to continue paying the TV licence fee beyond the current cut-off point of 75 because the Government is ending its funding of those licences.

Decades ago, a lot of these people would not have expected to live as long as they have. So a lot of the £745 million that it is claimed the BBC has to find to plug the looming gap in its funding is extra money that wouldn’t have existed years ago. The BBC would not be significantly losing out if the over-75s were still granted free licences by them.

What next? Raids on care homes to prod elderly people for licence money? M. Trotter, Sunderland

The BBC is no longer a service trusted by the public and it needs to be more commercially successful. Auntie is becoming redundant in this digital age.

Its staff are overpaid, its pensions are ridiculous, and the public should not be forced to pay for the broadcaster. People from all walks of life no longer have

belief in the antiquated service. Bring back the old-style Points Of View and open the matter up to debate. A. Patel, Solihull

The television licence is to go up to £154.50 a year in April. For many elderly people living alone, the TV and radio are their only contact with the outside world. The new fee will be one step too far for those struggling to survive in old age if the over-75s have to pay for a licence fee.

If ever an organisation was guilty of empire-building at the expense of the population, it is the BBC. Ever since the pirate radio stations of the 1960s showed them how best to meet the needs of its listeners, the BBC has grown radio and TV stations like dandelions in a summer garden.

Most of these cover the same ground as commercial stations, which have to raise their own

revenue through advertising. The days when the BBC was revered nationally for unbiased reporting are long gone, so why is it so well protected? Does it really need to have the best and most expensive presenters, like Gary Lineker, when many others would do an equally good job for a fraction of the fee?

How many people would stop watching Match Of The Day if it had a different presenter? Not one. Robert Parker, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire

The anti-British BBC doomsters will have egg on their faces when Britain’s continued economic success after Brexit will nail the lie that leaving the EU will be a total disaster for the UK’s businesses and workers. Gerald Gannaway, Bristol