The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) has released a report this week entitled “Global Player or Subsidy Junkie? Decision time for the BBC.” Amongst other things, the report calls for the BBC to begin to run on a subscription service and to entirely abolish the licence fee – some pretty big ideas for the BBC right now, who have come under more and more pressure in recent years to reinvent the way they make money. One of the main reasons the report gives the abolishment of the license is the prevalence of online broadband, suggesting that licences to broadcast have become obsolete in the digital world. It’s hard to disagree with that.
Here are a few more of the reasons that the ASI believe the BBC should end the era of the licence fee:
- It criminalises poor people.
- It forces people to pay for genuinely “free” services funded by advertising.
- It obliges the BBC to replicate a crude commercial model based on mass-audience advertising.
- Universal broadband and the Internet make a “licence” to broadcast obsolete. On the other hand, they enable direct delivery of services outside the UK. The current funding model denies access to Britons and others resident overseas.
But can we really expect the internet as we know it in the UK to be able to seriously replace the BBC? Currently, it doesn’t seem very likely. The UK broadband network doesn’t even reach all homes in the country yet, and when it does it’s likely many more places will still be without the sort of broadband speeds or bandwidth that are needed to properly stream television online: even in standard quality. Then there are HD broadcasts to think about, so it might be a long time before we can really say the BBC licence fee is obsolete, at least on the internet side of things. We don’t even have universal broadband yet, and the thinnest of commitments from the government says we won’t have it for another 5 years, yet.