As a result of the ongoing coronavirus crisis the BBC announced its decision to delay reforms to the over-75 TV licence, which were due to come into effect from 1st June 2020.
Since the over-75 TV licence was introduced in the year 2000, the concession has been available to every household with at least one occupant aged 75 years or older.
Until now the concession was funded by the Government, but under the terms of its latest Royal Charter the BBC accepted full liability for payment of the over-75 TV licence from 2020 in return for:
- the removal of the six-year TV licence price freeze;
- the closure of the so-called iPlayer loophole;
- reduced contributions towards the national roll out of broadband;
- reduced contributions towards Welsh-language broadcaster S4C.
You can read details of the agreement reached between the Government and BBC in these letters (here and here).
Despite the Government making clear to the BBC that it wished the over-75 TV licence to be retained beyond 2020, the BBC has decided to make savings by drastically scaling back the concession.
Under the BBC's toughened eligibility criteria the "free" TV licence will only be available to those over-75 households with an occupant in receipt of pension credit.
Under the new rules around 3.7 million households that currently receive a "free" over-75 TV licence will have to pay the full licence fee if they wish to continue viewing TV programmes (or BBC on-demand programmes via the iPlayer). Unsurprisingly, many over-75s are outraged at the idea of having to pay for a perk they now view as an automatic entitlement.
Pensioners who claim an over-75 TV licence but fail to provide evidence of their entitlement to pension credit will be targeted by the new TV Licensing "outreach team", which will be employed by the existing operations contractor Capita Business Services Ltd.
In a joint statement with the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), the national broadcaster set a new target date of 1st August 2020 for the implementation of the changes.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr show this morning the outgoing BBC Director General, Tony Hall, confirmed that plans were still in place for August, although the BBC Board was going to make a final decision closer to the time.
He boasted that the ongoing coronavirus crisis had made the BBC more relevant than ever, with 94 percent of people in the UK tuning in. As we said yesterday, given that most people have been cooped up at home for the last two months, the BBC can't really take too much credit for the fact they are watching more conventional TV programmes than normal.
Asked about the future funding of the BBC, Hall said that his personal preference was to retain the universal TV licence fee into the future, but there was a need to explore whether there was an easier, fairer system of funding that took into account that the BBC provided "something for everyone".
You can watch Hall's full interview on The Andrew Marr show below:
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1 comment:
This is not about "who watches what", but rather how the BBC can distract from the obvious and ongoing row over it's screwing over the commitment it agreed with UK Gov (in return for increased license rates and other benefits) to cover TV licenses for the over 75's.
That problem looms ever larger and nothing the BBC has done to date (including the half-arsed deferral) has done anything to mitigate the damage. The old adage "When in a hole, quit digging" seems to apply.
As I've said previously here and elsewhere, the Telly Tax is an anachronism which just looks more out of step with the modern world as every year passes. When was the last time you saw a millenial or younger sitting down to watch broadcast TV other than as an attempt to be social with older generations (parents, grandparents, etc.).
The BBC needs to give up its addiction to the vast streams of revenue without responsibility that comes from TV Licensing, they need to move into the same world as the rest of the media (particularly Netflix and Amazon) and establish a model based upon advertising, subscription fees or probably both.
The problem is that I very much doubt that any combination of advertising or subscription fees will bring in the £3,690,300,000 each year that the TV License brought in during 2018/2019
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-financial-information-AB19
The BBC needs to be forced off the public tit, it's as simple as that. Only then is there a possibility of reform.
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