The BBC is gearing up for a fight. It should accept the inevitable

Tony Hall, the BBC Director General, will take the opportunity during a speech in Oxford to say that sharing the licence fee would weaken not only the corporation, but broadcasting generally. For once, I agree with him. The idea of top-slicing the licence fee and passing the pot to other broadcasters is akin to a creeping nationalisation of the broadcasting sector. What I do not agree with Mr. Hall on though is the insistence that the licence fee should remain and that it should be there to solely fund the BBC.

Mr. Hall views the licence fee in a ‘competition for quality, not for funding’ way, but this highlights the snobbery that exists in some parts of the BBC. Is he seriously saying that other broadcasters do not offer quality programming? Has he not heard of Broadchurch and other dramas on ITV? Does he believe that Sky Arts does not broadcast quality arts programmes? Does he think that ITN, Channel 4 News, and Sky News are inferior products to that produced by the BBC?

In every other sphere of life, genuine competition leads to improved quality and better value for money. The two are not mutually exclusive, and the irony here is that many analysts believe that if the BBC were a private company funded on a subscription model, the vast majority of those who currently pay the licence fee would voluntarily subscribe, and the BBC would be richer as a result. Does he seriously expect us to believe that the BBC’s quality would take a nose dive if it earned more money through subscription?

As the BBC prepares for charter renewal at the end of 2016, more of the cash we are forced to hand over to the corporation is going to be spent on lobbying us that the licence fee should remain. Mr. Hall needs to get his head out of the sand and realise it is not in the long term interest of the BBC to keep the status quo. For the corporation to develop and flourish in a multi-channel, multi-platform, digital world, it has to break itself free of the compulsory poll tax on watching live TV.