We have been here before — and not long ago. When Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries tweeted on Sunday that “[t]his licence fee announcement will be the last”, she was renewing a battle against the BBC that was last fought by the Government two years ago. Reprimanded by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle for unveiling such an important decision on social media rather than in the Commons, Dorries softened her language a little but confirmed that the licence fee would indeed be frozen at £159 for two years as its future was discussed in detail.
The real-terms cut to the BBC’s funding would, she said, offer relief to those most vulnerable to the cost of the living crisis and encourage the corporation to seek new efficiencies. “We are supporting households at a time when they need that support the most and this settlement sends an important message about keeping costs down,” she said.
Scroll back to 16 February, 2019, and a report in the Sunday Times under the headline “No 10 tells BBC licence fee will be scrapped”, which quoted “a senior source” — assumed to be Dominic Cummings, still Johnson’s chief adviser — saying that “we are not bluffing on the licence fee. We are having a consultation and we will whack it”.
On that occasion, the Downing Street offensive was seen off by Tony Hall, then the BBC’s director-general, who launched a wily counter-strategy in public and private, emphasising the enduring value of public service broadcasting in the age of the algorithm. He was helped by the private warning of John Whittingdale, a minister of state at the Culture Department, that the practicalities of licence fee abolition and its replacement by a subscription service were horrendous.
More than 18 million homes presently use Freeview, the digital platform that delivers 70 television channels, including the main BBC ones, at no additional charge. Since Freeview is technologically incapable of withholding BBC channels from non-subscribers (the preferred option in Cummings’s plan) it would have to be switched off entirely, effectively denying millions access to television. This, Johnson realised, was a political non-starter, and the plan was ditched. And, as it happened, the BBC went on to have a period in the sun as a provider of information during the early months of the pandemic.
That onslaught upon the corporation was launched from a position of political might: the Conservatives had just won an 80-seat majority in the general election of 2019. In contrast, the offensive mounted this week by Dorries is a desperate bid to shore up a prime minister who may well be mortally wounded. Along with promises to crack down on migrants crossing the Channel and to purge No 10, her snap announcement was a transparent attempt to shift attention away from Johnson’s position and towards the “red meat” of populist measures.
In practice, Dorries’s argument that licence fee payers need to be shielded from inflation is deeply disingenuous. It is ludicrous to suggest that a principal worry of hard-pressed households at present is the compulsory levy on television ownership, rather than, say, rising energy bills or the cost of public transport. Meanwhile, the BBC will now have to make significant cuts over the next few years, with inevitable implications for its programming.
Second, there is indeed a debate to be had about the BBC’s future funding model as streaming services proliferate and television itself gradually ceases to be the main device used by viewers. But whatever replaces the licence fee must be compulsory. If, as the Government’s own Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy envisaged last year, the BBC is to remain central to the UK’s “soft power” — its global reach — it requires a fixed and mandatory funding system that enables it to produce world-class public sector broadcasting, take creative risks and provide first-rank news services.
There are many options, including a household charge linked to council tax bands or utility bills. The details are complex and the nuances manifold.
But the problem is not insuperable. What is certain is that the answer will not be discovered by an embattled populist regime thrashing around for enemies to fight and institutions to batter, simply to buy the PM time. This is absolutely not the way for an advanced democracy and G7 nation to formulate cultural and creative policy. In fact, it is a disgrace.
