00:00BBC as the national broadcaster, it's where we got our news from, it's where we got our
00:05entertainment from, and of course hence the fact that on Christmas Day it got audiences
00:10of 20 million people, so almost a majority of people watched it for the spectacular shows.
00:17That doesn't happen anymore.
00:19The BBC is under pressure from all sorts of new platforms, and of course the thing is
00:25there's a generational thing, I may sort of watch television in real time, but I suspect
00:29people sort of a lot younger than me, maybe not that much younger, they watch it when
00:35they sort of wish through streaming services, but of course the thing is though, coming to
00:39the economics, the BBC runs on the licence fee, and the licence fee is paid by us, or the people
00:46who want to keep within the law, and the fact that we've lost over half a million people
00:50in the last year, if you translate that into real numbers, that's their big end, it's
00:5597 million pounds, that's a lot of money to sort of lose out of your budget.
01:00The other thing which of course I've not mentioned, is the BBC is still seen, whatever people may
01:05sort of say, both on the left and the right, and of course I think any organisation that's
01:08criticised from both ends must be doing something right, and it's always difficult, you can't
01:12please all the people all the time, but the BBC has an immense amount of what I call soft
01:17power, it's seen as a sort of a prestige brand that comes out in this country, and we can
01:22then sell our shows all over the world, and that sort of propagates the sort of the view
01:27that Britain, the great things that happens in Britain, and of course if I give you David
01:30Attenborough, it's just one example of somebody of course who's a great ambassador.
01:35Under the current rules, you need a television licence to watch or record programmes as they
01:40are broadcast on any channel or online service. You also need one to use BBC iPlayer, but households
01:47which only watch on-demand programmes through services such as Netflix, Disney Plus or Amazon Prime
01:54do not currently have to pay. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has suggested a reform system could introduce
02:01a smaller charge for some streaming-only households, rather than making everyone pay the full licence fee.
02:08So the fact is, all that notwithstanding, the BBC is in a really difficult place, and of course if it's
02:15losing
02:15this money from the licence fee, all this, the government is losing that money, how does that then, that gap
02:20be made up? We know that the BBC is going through some redundancy cuts, particularly in the news
02:25department, and indeed some people say it was perhaps had overcapacity, but of course as a consequence
02:31we're going to lose something, so the ability to report some things, and particularly local news
02:35is gathering, because of course major news events, they always get well covered. But hey, the reality
02:40is that in sort of broadcasting terms, the BBC is just one of a number of players, all sort of
02:46fighting,
02:46if you like, for the same pie, because of course the national audience is only that much, and of course
02:51the national audience doesn't always watch terrestrial TV. The proposal comes as the BBC reports
02:56that 539,000 fewer television licences were in force over the past year, the biggest annual fall
03:04since the pandemic. Supporters of licence fee reform say the funding system needs to reflect the way
03:11people now watch television. Critics argue it would be unfair to charge households which choose not to
03:17use BBC services, and say the corporation should instead move towards a subscription model.
03:24So its market is shrinking, and it's really difficult, so I suspect it's going to have a lot
03:28more creative in terms of its output. Maybe we're going to sort of lose something in the process,
03:34the sort of the big dramas perhaps, which of course would be so unfortunate. There's a lot of rethinking
03:41to be done, and maybe we're going to have to sort of think about the BBC in a different way,
03:45and it might have to develop much more of a commercial arm, and we might have adverts,
03:49which of course people would not welcome. And of course we've also heard rumours,
03:53that sort of it may be that sort of people who do not pay the licence fee, and they do
03:57not watch the BBC
03:58or consume its output, which also, let's remember, it's not just television, it's the sort of the radio
04:03output, including things like the sort of the BBC World Service, which is heard all around the world.
04:08I believe there would be a lot of resentment for people who've, you know, to use the vernacular,
04:13copped out of the BBC for reasons which I don't know. There seems to be a resentment of paying
04:19the licence fee in a way which, of course, you don't get sort of, you know, the other streaming
04:24services for free, because of course there's no way you don't pay, they cut you off. If we were to
04:28have a reformed government, I suspect they would sort of go for it in a big way. But of course,
04:32let me just sort of finish on the fact that we've seen what happens when you get somebody in power,
04:37I'm thinking about Donald Trump, and they don't like the sort of the output of a particular
04:41broadcaster, they can make life extremely difficult. And of course, we sort of lose
04:46out as a consequence as a society. Well, nothing currently has been agreed,
04:49and the current television licence rules remain unchanged. Ministers say they want to retain
04:55the licence fee while reforming how it works, with further decisions expected as the next BBC's
05:02Royal Charter is negotiated. Any changes would require consultation and could affect millions of
05:08households which currently rely entirely on subscription streaming services.
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