Downing Street set to decriminalise non-payment of BBC licence fee
THE Prime Minister has ordered his aides to launch an urgent review into decriminalising non-payment of the BBC licence fee in the wake of his election triumph.
The move, which is bound to trigger a showdown with the corporation, comes as Downing Street has decided to impose an effective boycott of Radio 4’s flagship news programme Today over allegations of pro-Remain bias.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that Downing Street is preparing to launch a formal consultation on whether television viewers should face prosecution for failing to pay the £154.50 annual cost for watching live television or iPlayer, the broadcaster’s catch-up service.
Last night, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a former board member of the official Vote Leave campaign, who is now a defence minister, was being tipped as a possible new culture secretary.
The Prime Minister last week questioned how much longer the Government could justify funding a broadcaster out of “a general tax”, in remarks at an election rally.
Separately, last week Lee Cain, Mr Johnson’s director of communications, ordered government special advisers to send ministers onto daytime “sofa” shows and phone-in radio stations such as Radio 5 live and LBC, rather than taking part in the Today programme.
Downing Street declined to put up ministers for interviews on the programme yesterday or Friday morning, after Mr Johnson’s aides concluded during the election campaign that its broadcasting was aimed at a “Remain bubble”. Senior staff are said to have ignored its coverage over the past month and No10 is understood to have concluded they have little to gain in engaging with the programme unless it alters its approach. Mr Cain complained in August that Today was a “total waste of time”, but Cabinet ministers have since appeared on the programme.
After the Brexit Bill is passed, the Government is right to consider the future of the BBC, which has always had an uneasy relationship with the Conservative Party. Denis Thatcher once complained to Duke Hussey, then BBC chairman, that a “foul” libel had been visited upon the prime minister on Radio 4’s Today programme.
More generally, there have been perceptions of bias against free markets, the Tory party and Brexit.
These are backed up by research. There is bias by selection – the choice of topics covered. Rarely does the BBC look at how globalisation pulled more people out of poverty in the last 40 years than in the previous 6,000 years.
Nor does it mention that we are in the first sustained period in industrialised history of falling global inequality. On the other hand, features on inequality under so-called austerity or on the super-rich are commonplace.
The Today programme’s Thought for the Day slot rarely sees business in a positive light. Analysis of interviews suggests that people of particular perspectives are interrupted more. It was not only Conservatives who made official complaints after an Andrew Marr interview with Boris Johnson featured nearly as much of Marr speaking as it did of Mr Johnson.
BBC bias is not a problem that can be managed by better governance. We all believe the way we present issues is fair. But the BBC is always likely to be hostile to markets, and by extension to the Conservative Party, when its sole source of funding is a governmentguaranteed television tax. It might be expected to have a bias in favour of the state and to attract journalists who are naturally sympathetic towards big government. This should change.
The Government is considering decriminalising the licence fee. But in truth, licence fee funding should end full stop. Some propose privatising the BBC on a commercial, shareholderowned model. That has merit but we have seen in other countries how that can detract from media plurality. Such organisations can become the target of wealthy aspirant politicians who tie them back into the political process.
Companies do not have to be owned by shareholders. Other models of corporate governance have a great history in British commercial life.
Worker co-operatives (such as John Lewis) and mutual associations all have their place in a market economy.
Different forms of corporate governance work well in different situations. So why not turn the BBC into a subscriber-owned mutual and create a genuine people’s broadcaster?
We should end the TV licence within the next two years and let people receive television signals for other channels without a licence. BBC television would be encrypted and only available to subscribers. Every subscriber would become a part owner of the BBC. No doubt most people would still subscribe. But the increasing number of people who are turning away from the BBC should not be required to pay for it.
Under this model, the BBC could still set up commercially focused subsidiaries or get involved in joint ventures for economies of scale. The BBC should not fear withdrawal of its government-guaranteed income stream. A free mutualised BBC could leverage its brand abroad and generate much greater revenues. It could make content available for payment on a variety of different models. There would have to be provision for some BBC radio stations and perhaps the Parliament channel. The Government could pay for those to be run under contract after a tendering process.
Arguments about bias would then become irrelevant. If a private and mutualised BBC is biased, then the state should not be concerned any more than, say, the bias of The Guardian. People who do not like the BBC’s biases could stop watching it and, crucially, stop paying for it.
Philip Booth is senior academic fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs and professor of finance, public policy and ethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham