Framing

BBC Annual Report day - and before the giant brains of Dominic Cummings, Julian Knight, Darren Grimes, The Daily Telegraph and The Taxpayer's Alliance start throbbing with rage, let's reframe the debate a little further away from Gary Lineker's salary. 

The future debate about funding the BBC is about universality. It suits the Cummings narrative to suggest that the TV Licence is somehow not a Government impost. It is - the amount of the licence fee is determined by the Government, who could absolutely choose to set it at £10 to £1,000 or more annually. It is true that in recent years it's either grown with inflation (Labour), or been frozen (Conservative). If the BBC is to survive as we know it, it needs a new mechanism of funding, but the amount of that funding will be decided by the Government of that day, whether it's taken from Council Tax, general taxation, a surcharge imposed on internet providers, National Insurance, or wherever. 

The fundamental hardball question from opponents of the licence fee is "Why should I pay for something I don't use ?". They expect the Government to move the BBC to a subscription service. So that people can choose to use it or not, like Waitrose, or The National Trust, or The AA, or Netflix or Spotify or Disney or Amazon or ITV or Global Radio or Bauer or News UK.  

But there's no Government imposition on Waitrose to give everybody a daily allowance of free potatoes, flour and milk. The National Trust is not required to provide tins of shortbread to every household month by month. Amazon is not required to provide £157.50 of free goods per annum to the Over-75s. Netflix is not required to donate £75m a year for a Welsh TV Service. News UK is not asked to provide £40m a year to fund commercial local tv services. Spotify is not required to support 5 UK orchestras to the tune of £34m.  ITV is not required to spend £235m of its income broadcasting news programmes entirely outside the UK.  

Here's a few of the Ofcom strictures on the BBC which might have to pass to others: 5 hours tv a week to help people learn Gaelic; 675 hours a year of factual programming on CBBC; 40 documentaries a year on Radio 1; 115 hours a year of religious programming on BBC1 and BBC2. 

Why would a BBC subscription service bother with this stuff ?