Return on investment

Could the way Sky works provide a solution to updating the licence fee for a world of IP delivery ?  In DG Lord Hall's speech to the Oxford Media Convention last month, he said "Our view is that there is room for modernisation so that the fee applies to the consumption of BBC TV programmes, whether live on BBC One or on-demand via BBC iPlayer."

Sky subscribers have to use their account number to get the smartphone and tablet apps that give access to Sky satellite content "on the go".  I'm not clear whether this number can be applied to unlimited machines; you could imagine extended families creating quite a demand via a single subscription. According to Ofcom figures from last August, the average household now owns more than three types of internet-enabled device, with one in five owning six or more. I'd say that was already way out of date.

But, if sensible controls could be made to work, a licence fee tied to households would still have some traction. The alternative - a licence per device - seems unthinkable.

The trick now for the BBC is to use the 12 months of thinking about decriminalisation (for non-payment of licence fees) to deliver some concept of a BBC household account, that comes with a basic web interface piece of kit included in the fee. Most politicians know that there's still tons of money to be saved in public services by shifting to online interaction with users - in health, tax, education and much more.  It may also be worth ruminating on a future world of secure online voting that might come in the next fifty years - could a BBC household account provide the mechanics ?

Just to be clear - a BBC funded by optional subscription turns it into a commercial organisation. It is the (plus or minus 5%) certainty about funding over six-year periods that means the BBC can deliver on quality, engage with most of the population and take a few risks. The UK punches above its weight in most creative fields around the world because of the licence fee; generally, well-intentioned custodians of the BBC have demonstrated to successive generations that the world of imagination has more to it than formulaic cartoons, cheap game shows and hackneyed soap operas - and have trained and encouraged people to keep this modern success story going.  Commercial broadcasters have had to respond with quality output to deliver a meaningful share of the audience to advertisers.

This only-in-Britain cultural asset delivers an estimated £8 billion in economic impact every year. Long-term, if we keep it in good shape, the returns will last longer than fracking.