The government has floated ideas for getting rid of the Licence fee. Many would welcome that. Many resent the way they need to pay a licence fee to watch live tv at home, even if they do not want to watch BBC programmes. It is difficult to see why not paying the licence fee is a criminal offence, unlike other bills people delay paying. Too many licence fee cases clutter up our courts when there could be civil procedures for the debt. There is an inevitable decline in how many people need to pay the fee, as more shift to downloaded entertainment and subscriptions to services they prefer to the BBC offering.
The government is looking at the idea of creating the People’s BBC by mutualising it. I have always thought it a good idea to turn the domestic BBC over to the licence fee payers who could tell the top management what they wanted and could approve the choice of senior executives to secure their engagement. Licence layers might want to end the licence fee and go over to subscription or to adverts to pay for it. They might want to define a clear public service broadcasting agenda which required a more limited licence fee to support a public interest channel. General entertainment could become commercial and competitive.
What I am sure about is the BBC can make a much bigger contribution to the UK economy and jobs if only it was more ambitious outside the UK. The BBC is holding back the UK in the exciting and fast growing world of the media, video and film. The UK has plenty of talent and an ability to come up with entertainment ideas that strike a chord and pass down the generations. From James Bond to Paddington Bear very British dramas grab a world audience. If only the BBC could do the same.
BBC Commercial has struggled to compete with large global streaming platforms.
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The BBC set up a commercial arm to stride the world media markets and to export BBC product to earn revenue for itself and our country. BBC Commercial last year reached a turnover a little shy of $2.3bn and made a loss. Meanwhile it watched as the US giants just got bigger.
They were there exploiting the new demand for downloads, video on demand, films and entertainment more generally. Disney, Netflix, Warner and Paramount all had turnovers in excess of $30bn worldwide, all of them more than ten times larger than the BBC. Netflix has now taken much market share away from the BBC in UK homes. Disney makes good money out of adapting UK and other stories and books. Comcast, the US giant turns over $120 bn, showing just how big this world market is.
What BBC Commercial needs is more capital to expand its production and broadcasting capabilities much more rapidly. The BBC should offer a new issue of shares in BBC Commercial to people and companies willing to put up money to expand the brand and amuse more people in the world with its productions. On the back of the new share capital BBC Commercial could borrow to finance new material and to finance new technical capacity.
The government should not ask taxpayers to fund a declining BBC.
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The new shareholders should own more than half the enlarged share capital to give them sway over management and decisions. This would also guarantee substantial capital was raised. There could be a restriction on anyone buying the whole business through a golden share or other blocking device. BBC Commercial would need carefully negotiated contracts with the UK BBC over access to and use of BBC UK material. It would work best if there was some privileged two way access to each other’s commissioned products.
The government says it wants growth. There has been some growth in new studios and new entertainments in the UK, but the US dwarfs out efforts so far. The BBC has a bigger brand than business worldwide. It is time to release it to grow, and to harness private capital to help it sell to the world.
Meanwhile will the government get on with a replacement for the licence fee as they watch it decline and leave the BBC short of cash. Taxpayers should not be asked to pay the bill.
