http://www.vexen.co.uk/bbc.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2013
The British Broadcasting Corporation's services and products are used by 98% of the adults in Britain, every week1. Its website, mostly news and weather, is the most popular and highest quality of its kind and its natural history programs are the best. There are no adverts streamed on its TV channels nor on its website. In an era where all such traditional services are suffering from the increased competition from the Internet, the BBC is less confident than it used to be, worrying about its own shrinking influence against the mass of more-entertaining but less-informative news sources available online1. There are debates about who its services should be aimed at and whether the license fee should be changed or shared (it is funded by the taxpayer, basically).
It is a legal requirement to pay for the BBC License Free if you have a TV set, or some other device, that can view BBC TV content. It costs nearly £150 per year2. It doesn't matter if you watch them, you still have to pay. TV detector vans occasionally prowl the streets, correlating those with sets with addresses with licenses. It's a serious business! The BBC acquired £3.5 billion as a result of the license fee, in 20091. The fee is occasionally hotly contested by users and by other media companies, who obviously see the BBC as being subsidised competition. Although 37% say that the License fee is the wrong way to fund the BBC3, that is still, in a nation of the unhappy, quite a positive endorsement. But what are the possible alternatives?
Scrap the license fee and let the BBC fend for itself through adverts, populist programming and paid-for services. This will damage quality, but will open up the market.
Share the license fee so that it is paid to a consortium and spread between media companies who provide similar services, such as Virgin. This provides a form of market fairness. It will mean that license-paid-for channels will (like the BBC) have to drop adverts (or at least, a portion of them), which may be more painful to some channels than having the BBC as competition. OfCom, the industry regulator, ruled out the sharing of the license in 20094.
Reinvent the license as PAYG: now that TV is digitized new ways of charging for the BBC have been opened up. Services can be paid for monthly through the TV set and the like, and services can be provided strictly for those who pay for them. This is fairest on the consumer.
Some of the arguments for change are that the Licence Free takes away freedom of choice - to watch any TV you must pay it, even if you have no intention of watching BBC services (although in truth, its services and products are used by 98% of the adults in Britain, every week1).
“Magazine publishers and radio stations complain about unfair competition for audiences and advertisers. [...] Newspapers point out that the presence of a giant free news website makes it hard to charge for online content. Similar complaints forced ZDF, a German public broadcaster, to prune its website drastically last year. James Murdoch, who runs News Corporation's European and Asian operations, including BSkyB, has called the corporation's reach 'chilling'.”
"Cutting the BBC: No surrender" in The Economist (2010)5
The BBC has reacted to these criticisms and in 2009 surprised many with a declaration that it would cut back on its website, remove a few digital radio stations, and reduce its spending on sport and imported shows1.
“Magazine publishers and radio stations complain about unfair competition for audiences and advertisers. [...] Newspapers point out that the presence of a giant free news website makes it hard to charge for online content. Similar complaints forced ZDF, a German public broadcaster, to prune its website drastically last year. James Murdoch, who runs News Corporation's European and Asian operations, including BSkyB, has called the corporation's reach 'chilling'.”
"Cutting the BBC: No surrender" in The Economist (2010)5
However, as we shall see later, there are substantial counter-arguments.
98% of the adults in Britain, every week, use some of the services of the BBC1. The five biggest providers of global news are Al-Jazeera (English), France 24, CNN, Russia Today and BBC World. Although of those 5, Al-Jazeera, CNN and Russia Today are all widely known to be biased and selective in their broadcasting. BBC World has been found by analysts to be the most impartial and trustworthy.6. Many worry about the reduced impact of the BBC given the rise of more-entertaining but less-informative news sources available online1, but for now at least, the BBC is still highly influential across the world. British nationalist analysts consider it to be a great source of the UK's "soft power" around the world - meaning that the BBC is engendering positive attitudes towards the UK and the UK's interests around the world. It also does its part in spreading the use of reasonably well-spoken English.
The BBC provides a quality service, with world-class news services and many informational programs. Polls have found that the BBC is trusted more than the police and civil servants; which are both in turn more trusted than other journalists in general1. In general, the following arguments against changing the BBC's License, or fiat, are as follows:
It Works As It Is: It produces quality products in an era of trashy mass media. If it works, don't fix it!
Maintaining a Guaranteed Quality Service. In the era where the Internet is challenging all traditional media outlets to the extent that almost everyone is either dumbing down or scaling down, the BBC presents a guaranteed source of quality that is immune to market pressure to popularize. Stephen Fry has passionately defended the status quo, fearing the dumbing-down of the BBC as a result of altering its License agreement, warning of "ghetto-ising" it7. Using some similar language one critic of the state of the news industry reserves some of his rare praise for the BBC:
“There are still some safe havens which we might be able to protect. Some of them are inside the BBC whose public funding gives it some slight protection against commercialisation. And certainly there is a battle worth fighting to defend the BBC against the relentless pressure from Rupert Murdoch to privatise it and reduce it to the ghetto status of public broadcasting in the United States.”
"Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies (2008)8
In other words, it provides a good service that provides services worldwide; benefiting many who live where there are no other good sources of global news, and even, helping sway the world towards democracy and civility. Even on its home turf, the BBC is a mass educator rather than an entertainer. It is certainly worth having a corporation that fulfils this role, no matter if the License fee is slightly unpopular, and slightly expensive.
The BBC Worldwide made £1 billion in 20091 and has invested in cable channels and studios across the world. It seems that if the BBC continues to hold out as it is, it will of its own accord become commercially viable and no longer need the License. As competence in English continues to increase throughout the world, things can only get better. But it is a matter of time (a decade) and it is not yet ready to shed the License.
A National Public Asset: Some argue that the BBC is has the stature of a national library, or a national museum, whose role is tied in with national identify. Nothing compares to the size and organisation of the valued BBC Archive, for example. In a multicultural Britain, it serves as a source of common culture, aiding the integration of those from alien cultures.1
Although in 2009 a poll found that 47% thought the BBC License fee wasn't good value3, 98% of all Britons use the BBC, per week1. I suspect that many view its programs and services without always acknowledging the BBC as the source. No-one else produces wildlife documentaries of the same quality, for example, and its radio stations are taken for granted. In 2009, the BBC voluntarily cut back on some services such as sports, which are more appropriate to the mass-market than to a news provider1. Given the way that commercial media outlets such as news have suffered greatly in the internet-era and have largely resorted to peddling more and more entertainment, celebrity gossip, sensationalism and sports instead of investigative journalism and information, the BBC must remain as it is in order to provide not just Brits, but the world, with a quality set of services that are partially immune to market pressure to dumb down.