The following report is from Bloomberg (excerpts):
The UK is considering making households who only use streaming services such as Netflix and Disney pay the BBC license fee, as part of plans to modernize the way it funds the public-service broadcaster.
Extending the fee to streaming applications is on a menu of options being discussed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing internal government deliberations.
Alternatives under discussion include allowing the British Broadcasting Corp. to use advertising, imposing a specific tax on streaming services, and asking those who listen to BBC radio to pay a fee.
The government is the early stages of examining how to overhaul the funding of Britain’s public broadcaster when its current 11-year charter ends on Dec. 31, 2027. Ministers are looking to either retain and alter the current television license fee model or scrap it and instead fund the BBC through alternative models such as taxation or subscription. That’s because viewing habits have changed as users gravitate toward on-demand services.
The talks are sensitive because the UK’s national broadcaster is often viewed as a key vehicle for the country’s soft power around the world. But the BBC — which is committed to maintaining impartiality in its editorial output — also frequently faces criticisms of bias from both the left and right of the country’s political spectrum.
Another option is to leave the license fee largely as it is, with a few tweaks, a continuation of uprating, and better enforcement, a person familiar with the internal deliberations said. If there were an obvious alternative model, the license fee would have been scrapped already, they added.
Government discussions remain preliminary and nothing has been decided, the people said. A spokesperson for the DCMS said in a statement that they wouldn’t comment on “speculation,” adding: “we will provide more details about charter review plans in due course.”
The license fee dates back to 1946, when consumers watched programs at the time of broadcast. It currently costs households who watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer £169.50 ($210.60) a year, an amount that usually rises annually with inflation. Even if they don’t watch BBC programs, households are required to hold a TV license to view or stream programs live on sites including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. However it’s not needed by those who only watch on-demand, non-BBC content.
License fee income in 2023/24 totaled £3.66 billion, little more than the £3.51 billion raised in 2010/11, according to government data. While expanding the fee to cover streaming services would address the shift from linear viewing to video-on-demand, it also risks a backlash from consumers who already pay subscriptions for the same services.
“Forcing streaming service users to cough up the license fee would truly be one of the most bonkers ideas ever concocted,” said John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, a pressure group that campaigns for lower taxes. “Far from modernizing the BBC’s funding system, it would only further entrench the already archaic nature of the hated TV tax.”
Read the rest of the story for free on Substack:
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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