The BBC has been celebrating its 100th birthday this year, proudly looking back on a century of striving to inform, educate and entertain. The next few years could be tricky though – as questions over its funding threaten to crash the party.
The media landscape has changed dramatically since 1922, and the UK needs to decide whether it still wants or needs a broadcaster funded through public means and answerable to the public – or whether it should be paid for by individual consumers and answerable to the market.
This is not a rhetorical or obscure philosophical question. It affects everyone who pays the BBC licence fee, which currently costs £159 a year.
