In the 1999 pre-budget report, Chancellor Gordon Brown announced that, from the following year, over-75s would get their tv licence fees free. The BBC welcomed "this imaginative and innovative approach to a long-standing issue". At that time, a tv licence cost £101, and with 3 million households likely to benefit, the Department of Work and Pensions would have to stump up £303 million to Auntie in the first year.
The eyes of the BBC suits were on the real prize, which came in 2000 from Culture Secretary Chris Smith - a deal to raise the licence fee by RPI plus 1.5% every year in April. Trebles all round.
Spool forward to October 2010, and the licence-fee-deal-done-in-a-weekend, between Mark Thompson and Jeremy Hunt. The licence was frozen at £142.50 for six years, representing at least a 16% cut in real terms - and the BBC would have to pay for World Service, BBC Monitoring, give cash support to commercial local tv, S4C and rural broadband.
If you remember, all this cash was to avoid having to make an open-ended commitment to paying for over-75 licences from the licence fee - now up to £556m and rising. The Guardian reported a political source saying, "A number of us were horrified at the proposal. Over the last three days we had to find a way to make [an alternative] happen."
Another spool forward, to this Saturday's Daily Mail. Three Tory ministers - could any of them be associated with the Department for Work and Pensions ? - want to make the BBC to pick up the cost for over-75 licences in future. "It will be top of the list in the negotiations over charter renewal,’ said one. The current bill is some £600m - spookily, making the BBC cover the cost would be a 16% cut in income - but one that's bound to grow.
We warned before, that, away from interesting but futile discussions about digital futures and the meaning of public service broadcasting, this Charter Renewal is going to boil down to another discussion about the size of the licence fee - and what the BBC can afford to do when it's settled. A regressive settlement would be a really bad outcome.
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In 2017, though I doubt if I will be here to see it, I would prefer NO BBC whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Wotever people say these days. I lived with the BBC all my working life abroad and I honestly relied on it. But now, since retirement I find almost the whole output of the service, especially TV, to be beyond the Pale. And after working all over the world (and in some parts of Aberdeen) I do wonder why, on pain of criminal conviction, I need to pay a BBC TV Tax? It is obscene.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC would be the first to spout off about it in other countries. It must end. SOON. So that I may live to see the end of the Paxmans et al., who last year condemned the commemoration of the Great War and now have their very own programmes "celebrating" it. (Though probably not paid on a PAYE basis for their troubles!)
GET RID! SOON! Please, dear God, let me live to see the day this abominable Telly Tax on the British people is abolished.