From the BBC:
“Nadine Dorries: BBC licence
fee announcement will be the last”
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries
has said the next announcement about the BBC licence fee will be the last - and
it was time to discuss new ways to fund and sell "great British
content". She said "the days of the elderly being threatened with
prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors" were over. Her comments
come as unconfirmed reports say the government is expected to freeze the £159
fee for two years. A BBC source said there had been similar speculation before.
The licence fee's existence is guaranteed until at least 31 December 2027 by
the BBC's royal charter, which sets out the broadcaster's funding and purpose. The
annual fee is then set by the government, which announced in 2016 that it would
rise in line with inflation for five years from April 2017. Money raised from
the licence fee pays for BBC shows and services - including TV, radio, the BBC
website, podcasts, iPlayer and apps. Lengthy negotiations have already taken
place between BBC bosses and the government over a future funding settlement,
with the idea of freezing the licence fee discussed back in October.
A government source confirmed the
BBC discussions over the licence fee were ongoing. But they said the culture
secretary recognised pressure on people's wallets - and the licence fee was an
"important bill" for people on low incomes and pensioners, which
ministers could control. A BBC source said of the fee freeze: "Anything
less than inflation would put unacceptable pressure on the BBC finances after
years of cuts." They added there were "very good reasons for
investing in what the BBC can do for the British public, and the creative
industries and the UK around the world". Previously, Ms Dorries, who was
appointed culture secretary last September, said she thought the BBC should
exist, but it needed to be able to take on competitors such as Netflix and
Amazon Prime. At the Conservative party conference in October, Ms Dorries said
the broadcaster needed "real change" in order to represent the entire
UK and accused it of "groupthink". The BBC was "a beacon for the
world", she said, but she thought people who had worked their way up had a
similar background, a certain political bias and thought and talked the same.
Labour's shadow culture secretary
Lucy Powell accused the prime minister and Ms Dorries of seeming
"hell-bent on attacking this great British institution because they don't
like its journalism". "British broadcasting and our creative
industries are renowned around the world and should be at the heart of global
Britain," she said. Liberal Democrat culture spokesperson Jamie Stone said
freezing the licence fee would be a "stealth cut of almost £2bn" that
would put services at risk. "The government must stop this reckless
ideological crusade and back off our BBC," he added. In 2020, people over
75 began paying for their TV licence, which had previously been free. Funding
for this had come from the government, but responsibility for this policy was
handed to the BBC after the last funding settlement. In 2019, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson said the BBC should "cough up" and pay for TV licences for
all over-75s but the BBC said doing so would force "unprecedented
closures" of services. Now, only over-75s on pension credit are eligible
for a free licence, paid for by the BBC. TV licence evasion itself is not an
imprisonable offence. However, the government says non-payment of the fine,
following a criminal conviction, could lead to a risk of imprisonment - "a
last resort" after other methods of enforcement have failed. Last year,
the government decided not to move ahead with plans to decriminalise
non-payment of the licence fee, but said it would "remain under active
consideration".
Analysis box by Amol Rajan,
media editor And so as the BBC turns 100, a British government officially
turns against the licence fee as the best way to fund it. Nadine Dorries
is not arguing against the existence of the BBC, but is now formally opposed to
a compulsory levy on households that own a TV. She argues that it potentially
criminalises the vulnerable, including the elderly. Defenders of the
licence fee argue it is the least bad mechanism, and moving to a Netflix-style
subscription model would force the BBC to serve subscribers rather than be
universal. It comes after lengthy negotiations between the government
and the BBC over the future funding settlement. The actual negotiation
over how the BBC is funded after 2027 is still several years away. Dorries
tweeted a link to a Mail on Sunday article suggesting that, amid a cost of
living crisis, the fee would be held at £159 for two years - amounting to a
real terms cut of hundreds of millions. The BBC is also under relentless
financial and creative pressure from streaming giants such as Apple and Amazon.
Its future depends above all on whether it can persuade young people to pay
for it.
^ Since 1923 the UK requires
every British Citizen to pay £159 ($217) every year for their Radios/TVs. The
TV/Radio License will be abolished in 2027. Note this is on top of any
Streaming/Satellite/Cable Service. There shouldn’t be a TV/Radio License anywhere
anymore.
The US has never required
a TV/Radio License and most of Europe used to.
Today there is a yearly TV /Radio
License in: Albania ($0.93), Austria ($102), Bosnia & Herzegovina ($52),
Croatia ($156), Czech Republic ($76), Denmark ($295), France ($159), Germany
($251), Ghana ($9), Ireland ($182), Italy ($102), Japan ($122), Mauritius ($33),
Montenegro ($48), Namibia ($26), Pakistan ($2.38), Poland ($68), Slovakia ($63),
Slovenia ($175), South Africa ($26), South Korea ($23) and Switzerland ($388)
The following countries had a
TV/Radio License, but have since abolished them: Australia (1974), Belgium
(2018), Bulgaria (1991), Canada (1953), Cyprus (1990), Gibraltar (2006),
Hungary (2002), Iceland (2007), India (1984), Israel (2015), Liechtenstein (1998),
Malaysia (2000), Malta (2011), the Netherlands (2000), New Zealand (1999), North
Macedonia (2017), Norway (2020), Romania (2017), Singapore (2017), the Soviet Union (1961), Sweden (2019) and Taiwan
(1970). ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.