How Should the BBC Be Funded?

Public opinion polls across the twenty-first century indicated that growing numbers of people supported the idea of new forms of funding the BBC. Although the licence fee model had been shown by previous reviews to be the optimal model for BBC funding, successive governments had shown increased sensitivity to negative public opinion about the licence fee. The decision by the Corporation to discontinue its undertaking to fund free licence fees for the over-75s also caused political and public opinion increasingly to crystallise around changing the way the BBC was funded. Alternative funding models included a new form of taxation, advertising or a subscription payment method. None of these alternatives met with overwhelming public endorsement however. Decisions about how much the BBC should receive as well as how it should receive it also triggered debates about the kind of broadcast service the country’s national broadcaster should be expected to deliver. Historically, the BBC was expected to cater to specialised and minority audience tastes eschewed by commercial broadcasters. Yet, such outputs could prove expensive. The BBC was also still expected to provide high-quality news output on a reduced budget. Whichever government is in power when a funding decision is made should adopt a multidimensional approach to its assessment of the BBC’s value to the nation. It contributed a great deal of hidden value by providing outputs to commercial broadcast services and by training much of the talent working throughout the broadcasting industry. These contributions could be lost if it ends up being starved of funds.