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Licence Fee should be shared says Bragg

(January 2004)

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NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Andrew posted:
The controller of Granada's arts and features programming said that with audiences fragmenting, it no longer made sense for the BBC to get all the cash.


Maybe when we've gone all digital (which won't be in 2010 full stop) then this would be a valid suggestion. The situation we have at the moment though - I don't think so.

Quote:
He floated the idea - as the BBC's charter comes up for renewal - that the licence money should be shared with all terrestrial broadcasters with public service obligations. He also called the BBC's digital arts channel, BBC4, a "fig leaf" to cover its inadequacies in other areas. It had become a home for shows which would have been on BBC2 and BBC1.


I think he has a point about BBC4 becoming "a home for shows which would have been on BBC2 and BBC1" but not with sharing licence fee with the terrestrial broadcasters.

Quote:
ITV was facing growing competition for commercial revenue, he said, while trying to maintain its public service roles, such as a commitment to the arts. One way of ensuring a future would be to get a share of the licence fee.


Well surely this is ITV's problem. It was always going to be finding itself up against more competition, ever since Sky came along. I don't think chucking £25 per licence payee at Network Centre is going to change very much.

Elsewhere in the thread, I kind of agree with the idea about Channel 4 possibly receiving a slice of the licence fee (what with it being state owned and all). I think the key will be with ITV and the amount it pays for its licences, £300m a year, but I don't think they'll get them scrapped somehow. Reduced, possibly. By how much, who knows?

Andrew posted:
Well an idea could be, say ITV or Channel 4 run an arts series or something in prime time. Advertising revenue during this show will be less than they would get compared to an entertainment show. Therefore licence fee money could be used to top up the balance between the two figures.

This would mean these commercial channels would have a guaranteed income during a lesser viewed arts show just like BBC1 does, whereas now they make less money making arts shows and that's why they'd rather not make them or show them late at night.


I like this idea, but I think it would be better if the arts show went out commercial free on ITV1. Obviously it'd be commercial free on the Beeb though, and I wouldn't object to Channel 4 running commercials either. I just believe that if ITV1 are showing something that's been largely subsidised by their cut of the licence fee, putting commercials in it just wouldn't be appropriate. I think anyway.
:-(
A former member
I think ITV should get all the licence fee to be honest, but that is my opinion. The money from the fee is being wasted on almost every programme on the BBC because most are crap. ITV gets more viewers, I watch ITV more and basically I am paying the BBC so I can watch ITV, and have to have adverts. I would like to be able to choose who I, the viewer, give the licence fee too, and I would give mine to ITV because they deserve it more and should not have to have adverts. But unfortunately life is life and the BBC is the BBC and they will be wasting people's money for years to come on their crappy programmes and ITV will pull in more and more viewers and continue showing adverts which is a shame because it's unfair on licence fee payers and I think licence fee payers should choose where their money goes so it can be funded on the programmes they watch.
:-(
A former member
Well surely this is ITV's problem. It was always going to be finding itself up against more competition, ever since Sky came along. I don't think chucking £25 per licence payee at Network Centre is going to change very much

But what if that £25 per licence payee was guaranteed to be used *only* to make public service programming that ITV would otherwise go out of its way to avoid making?

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