Evidence to the BBC Funding Review Panel - March 1999

Posted by The Campaign For Press and Broadcasting Freedom

The Scope of the Review

1.The Campaign is concerned about the terms of reference and timescale of the review. Decisions about the funding of the BBC have long term implications for the BBC, public service broadcasting and the development of other forms of communications. Bracketing the issue off in this manner, and forcing discussion into a tight timetable suggests that the government does not want a full open public debate. The Campaign Recommends that the findings of the inquiry are considered by a full scale public inquiry into the future of broadcasting.

The Licence Fee

2.The licence fee remains the most appropriate way in which to fund that element of public service broadcasting which is provided by the BBC.

[i] It should be indexed linked to reflect real rises in labour and technology costs.

[ii] The government should consider extending the existing concessionary licence fee schemes to help those people least able to afford the fee. Funding for this can come, in part, from sales of BBC programmes and, in part, from payment through the benefit system. An independent body could be established, free from government control, which would determine the amount needed each year for this subsidy. The money could be raised via direct taxation.

2[a] Payment of the licence fee should guarantee access to all BBC and other public service broadcasters services. BBC services should not be delivered in a form which requires the licence fee payer to pay twice for services already paid for , either by being on an individual pay-per-view or subscription basis, or 'bundled' with other services where access is governed by extra payment.

2[b] Extending income for the BBC should be looked at in the context of the general economic environment. It is unfair to suggest that broadcasters with strong positive programming requirements should have to compete with companies who have very few. The government should move towards extending positive programming requirements to all terrestrial, digital and satellite services which serve the UK. This can be done by establishing income and audience thresholds, which once reached, trigger the obligation to provide a wider range of programming. In time this would at least allow public service broadcasting, by definition a more expensive and socially beneficial product than those provided in the main by broadcasters with no such obligations, to compete on a level playing field.

2.[c] An extra licence fee levied on receivers of digital equipment would be a negative development. It would raise serious objections from commercial operators who would argue that this was inhibiting their development and favouring the BBC. It might be vulnerable to successful challenge under competition law. It would open the door for a sustained campaign to abolish the licence fee.

3.There is widespread concern about the BBC's commercial trading activities. Whilst it is sensible for the BBC to sell its programmes and products, it is not sensible for increasingly larger parts of the Corporation to be turned into commercial concerns. This will continue to , as it already has, raise objections from commercial operators about 'unfair competition', and places major pressures on the public service element to respond more and more to commercial imperatives. The BBC should be organised primarily as a public service programme maker and should not seek to behave like a commercial company.

4. We consider that the funding of the BBC cannot be viewed primarily as a question of economics. It is an area which involves questions of public utility and welfare. As such the Government should take steps to view the future of the BBC in the context of the wider development of mass communications in the form of an inquiry. It should not be satisfied with excluding the wider public from this debate by conducting narrowly focused inquiries into major matters of public concern as if they were purely technical economic questions