Given the trademark timorousness of the British Conservative Party, I must grudgingly concede that this is something of a brave pronouncement by their standards:
The Conservatives are to propose that the television licence fee should be halved as part of a radical overhaul of the role of the BBC.
Why ‘halved’? Who does that help? What does that achieve? Why not scrap the iniquitous television tax altogether? ‘Half’ indeed. Pah! Presumably they don’t feel quite bold enough to go the whole hog.
I see an upside and a downside here. The upside is that I think this is the first time that the BBC’s looting rights have been publicly challenged in the mainstream. That’s a start. But it is only a start.
The downside is that the Conservatives cannot be entirely trusted to see through even this lily-livered compromise. All it takes is a Guardian op-ed denouncing them as rabid fascists for them to drop the idea like a hot brick and run away.
Even if that were not the case, the Conservatives actually have to be back in power in order to effect their semi-decent idea and the prospects of that happening are looking dimmer by the day.
‘Auntie’ is still a long way from threatened.
The reduction of the BBC licence fee by half has been snatched out of the air, and is on a par with the recent suggestion that the speed limit on motorways should be increased from 70 to 80. The Tories are so bereft of courage and imagination that they are openly playing the “minor percentage point” game, rather than covertly as before.
Seems to me that the “Public Service Broadcasting” ethos is to provide quality programming on useful and edifying subjects that are not normally commercially viable.
Supposing half of the BBC’s income is wasted on the agendas of Guardian-reading bureaucrats and programmes that are better done by commercial outsiders, it seems to me that slicing the license fee in half is an ideal way of using supply (of resources) and demand to let those who understand broadcasting (there are actually still many in the BBC!!!) to weed out the useless parts of the Corporation.
In practice, we might find that it’s the Guardianistas who retain their jobs…
Conservative politicians are timid. When they pick up a meme, you can be sure it already has deep roots. The BBC should be scared.
Supposing half of the BBC’s income is wasted on the agendas of Guardian-reading bureaucrats and programmes that are better done by commercial outsiders,
I tend to think that the agendas of Guardian-reading bureaucrats are what the BBC would cling to if you took away half its income. The programs that are better done by commercial outsiders would either be sold off to commercial outsiders or funded with advertising. What is worse, what was left of the BBC would be even more embittered and self-righteous than it is now, which doesn’t strike me as a pleasant prospect.
It’s being halved, so that more people will buy the license, and then they can raise the license fee again later. At least, that’s how we’d do it in America.
I believe that “quality programming on useful and edifying subjects that are not normally commercially viable” is the same thing as “programming that most people do not think is worth their time,” is it not?
Could someone please explain why I should support in any way programming that most people do not think is worth their time, even at half the current rate?
Scipio – “more people would buy licences …”. I think you have missed the point of the debate. The licence fee is mandatory. It’s not an option. They have detector vans that can not only detect a TV in your home, but they can tell you which programmes you were watching at a specific time. Whether you watch BBC TV or listen to BBC radio or not, if you have a television set in your home, you are obliged by law to buy a television licence, which funds the BBC, under penalty of imprisonment for failure to do so.