Axe BBC licence fee for Sky-style subscriptions, 40 per cent of viewers tell poll
THE BBC licence fee should be replaced by a Sky-style subscription, a new poll has found.
Forty per cent of those polled backed subscriptions, compared with 37 per cent who favour the present £157.50 annual charge.
The survey, commissioned by the Defund The BBC pressure group, also found 15 per cent of viewers say they will not watch any BBC programmes during Christmas, while a third plan to watch a maximum of five hours.
Boris Johnson is coming under growing pressure from Tory backbenchers to re-examine the way the broadcaster is funded. More than 25 MPs wrote to the Prime Minister last month to urge him to decriminalise licence fee evasion to ‘defend British traditions and values… to stand against the senseless woke whingers and the soulless militants who despise the best of Britain’.
It’s a criminal offence to watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer unless you have a licence. Without one, you risk prosecution and can be fined up to £1,000.
But Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns writes below that she objects to having to pay the fee because of the lack of original programmes this Christmas. She says it is ‘dispiriting’ to see the Corporation’s ‘dismal schedule’ for this festive season.
Ms Jenkyns adds: ‘Among those programmes with a Christmas theme, I fear it’s no longer a guarantee of quality. There’s The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special, and Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special – a sitcom that deeply divides opinion.’
She says the schedule ‘is littered with endless repeats and cheap game shows’.
The poll found that only 36 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the BBC’s schedule for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, rising to 44 per cent among those aged over 55.
The findings come as the BBC faces mounting criticism for neglecting its older viewers and pursuing a ‘ woke’ Left-wing agenda. Last week, this newspaper reported on research by the Campaign For Common Sense that found of 364 comedy slots broadcast by the BBC over the past month, just four featured comedians with explicitly Conservative or pro-Brexit views, with 268 slots filled by comedians with publicly pronounced Left-leaning views, such as Nish Kumar, Adam Hills and Shappi Khorsandi.
The BBC also came under fire from viewers last week for a scene in the Vicar Of Dibley in which the lead character, played by Dawn French, ‘took the knee’ for Black Lives Matter.
Rebecca Ryan, campaign director of Defund The BBC, said: ‘ The British public want the licence fee to move to a subscription model that would mean people have the right to decide if they want to access BBC content or not.
‘It is clear from this poll that there is a huge swathe of the population who do not feel the BBC’s Christmas schedule is on a par with what it should be and many will be watching far less BBC content than they did last year. A major factor of this is undoubtedly the subscription
/ choices in the form of Sky, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video which have a raft of on-demand content. The BBC licence fee is outdated and unwanted.’