The Government has missed the boat on TV licence reforms, according to an influential committee of MPs.
Earlier this week the House of Commons Culture, Media, Digital and Sport Select Committee released its much anticipated sixth report on "The Future of Public Service Broadcasting".
For the past year the committee has been considering the role of public service broadcasting in the digital age. It has been paying particular interest in the future funding of public service broadcasters and the regulation, accessibility and delivery of those services.
The report includes a lot of interesting content, but we are naturally focusing on the future of the TV licence fee.
Earlier this year the Government ruled out decriminalisation of TV licence fee evasion at the current time, but pledged to keep the future funding of the BBC under close review.
The BBC's stance on the continuing TV licence fee is pretty clear. Under the current system every household or business premises with equipment installed or used to receive TV programmes (or BBC on-demand programmes) must legally be covered by a valid TV licence.
An annual TV licence currently costs £157.50 (but is about to increase) and all the revenue generated - just shy of £4 billion - is used to fund the operations and creative output of the BBC.
However woeful its content; sordid its scandal; reckless its finances; the BBC is guaranteed to receive that £4 billion on a silver platter. It is understandably very happy with that arrangement.
Addressing the committee, the BBC Director General, Tim Davie, said: "The BBC's position is, I think, crystal clear on this, and it is endorsed by the Perry report and numerous bits of analysis.
"Regardless of any broader debates about the licence fee, as it is currently configured, I think this system is logically hard to beat. The decriminalisation proposal, frankly, just does not pass the logic test."
The report draws the following conclusions:
- An online public sector broadcaster is not yet a viable prospect, given gaps in super-fast broadband access in parts of the UK.
- A move online, at the current time, would result in 1.8 million households losing access to a public service broadcaster.
- The failure to enable a viable alternative source of funding for the BBC means that TV licence is likely to be around until at least the end of the next charter period (31st December 2037).
- While TV services are likely to move online in the future, gaps in coverage mean that conventional broadcasts should be retained.
- Current broadcasting legislation is "no longer fit for purpose" and the Government has been too slow to implement reforms suggested by broadcasting regulator Ofcom.
- The Government should end damaging speculation about the future decriminalisation of TV licence evasion.
- The BBC TV licence evasion target of 5.9 percent is likely to be missed by a significant margin, as an increasing number of viewers abandon paying the fee.
- There is a real risk that the TV licence funding model will become unsustainable, with the true evasion rate approaching 8 percent and likely to climb even higher.
Committee chairman, Julian Knight MP, said: "It's clear that the BBC TV licence fee has a limited shelf life in a digital media landscape. However, the Government has missed the boat to reform it.
"Instead of coming up with a workable alternative, it has sealed its own fate through a failure to develop a broadband infrastructure that would allow serious consideration of other means to fund the BBC.
"Not only that, but the Government is effectively allowing the BBC to haemorrhage funds through non-payment of the licence fee as a result of continued speculation over decriminalisation of licence fee evasion, a situation it must bring to an end."
The BBC TV licence fee rises to £159 from 1st April 2021.
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