Bill Carmichael: Tax-funded BBC is relic from the past

IF the BBC had never been thought of, would we consider establishing it now?
Is the TV licence still justifiable?Is the TV licence still justifiable?
Is the TV licence still justifiable?

Would we really conclude that what we need in the 21st century multi-platform, multi-channel, digitally-connected world is a monolithic state broadcaster, which is subject to political pressure from the Government, which costs £3.7bn a year to run and is funded by a compulsory tax on the ownership of a television set?

Would we demand £145.50 a year from each household in the country, regardless of whether they actually watch any BBC programmes and regardless of their ability to pay?

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Would we criminalise more than 165,000 mainly female, overwhelmingly poor people a year – 10 per cent of all cases that come before the magistrates – by dragging them through the courts, and would we throw many of them in jail if they can’t or won’t pay?

And would we then include an enormous loophole in this system so that tech-savvy people who only watch catch-up TV on services such as the BBC iPlayer on their laptops or tablets don’t have to pay a penny?

Or alternatively would we conclude there are far more fairer, simpler and effective ways of producing and funding high quality television, radio and online news and entertainment that work perfectly well all around the world – for example by subscription or through advertising?

I think the answers to these questions are pretty obvious, but still the well-paid “suits” at the BBC cling to the obsolescent licence fee like a drowning man grabbing a lifebuoy.

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Next month the Government will produce a White Paper on the future 
of the BBC. The Corporation’s Royal Charter is due to expire in December this year and reports have suggested that instead of its 10-year lifespan, it could be reduced to five years.

The one thing that should be clear from this White Paper is that things cannot go on as they are – advances in technology have made sticking to the status quo an impossibility.

The idea of a tax on television sets might have made some sense in 1966, but in 2016 it is quite simply nonsense.

The technology already exists to allow viewers to watch what they want, when they want. Who needs something as archaic as “broadcast schedules”?

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Most crucially of all. it allows viewers to only pay for what they want to watch by voluntary subscription rather than a compulsory tax

This week a research paper by the Institute of Economic Affairs pointed to one possible solution – the privatisation of the BBC.

The authors argue this would free the BBC from the political pressure applied by Government and allow it to exploit commercial freedoms and become a true global media player.

As it is the BBC risks becoming a minnow in international broadcasting, tied to a politically loaded and old-fashioned method of funding which has no future.

The remain drain

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I WAS walking through Sheffield city centre this week when a woman thrust a leaflet into my hands with the words: “Just look how much money we get from the EU!”

This was such a preposterous notion I had to read the flier produced by the Britain Stronger in Europe group.

Sure enough the headline claim was that the EU had “invested” £1.1bn in Yorkshire and the Humber.

So I asked the woman: “Do you know where all this EU money comes from?”

“A variety of sources,” she answered.

“Including the British taxpayer?”

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“Well we all contribute, but we all get out more than we put in.”

As well as being a logical impossibility, this is flat out wrong. For Remainers finding this hard to understand let’s put it clearly – the UK is a net contributor to the UK budget. We pay in more than we get back. A lot more.

In fact we pay the EU about £18bn a year, and the EU then returns about 50 per cent of this – about £9bn – for 
British projects deemed deserving 
by unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels.

If she thought this was such a fantastic deal, I decided to make her a similar offer.

So I told her: “If you give me £10, I’ll give you £5 back and I’ll tell you what you can spend it on.”

For some inexplicable reason, she didn’t think this was a good deal at all!

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