British Broadcasting Veterans Andrew Neil & Greg Dyke Tear Apart “Straitjacket” BBC Licence Fee, Suggest New Models

deadline.com:

British broadcaster Andrew Neil and former Director General Greg Dyke have torn apart the BBC licence fee, with Neil calling it a “straitjacket” and urging the corporation to think about new models.Speaking to a UK House Lords of Committee, Neil, who presented BBC shows for 25 years, said questions need to be asked over whether a funding mechanism that was created “when Lenin was rolling out his economic plan and Warren Harding won a landslide in the U.S.

presidential election” still works.Neil set out his alternative to the £159 ($198.45) annual licence fee, which makes around £3.75BN ($4.7BN) per year but is being frozen for the next two years – a move by the UK government that is set to lose the corporation around £1.5BN ($1.9BN) by 2027.A Commission For Public Service Broadcasting would be directly financed by the UK taxpayer acting “as a gate between politicians and broadcasters,” according to Neil’s plan, with the Commission’s pot used to fund less commercial genres such as news, documentaries and children’s.

The BBC would then be free to make money out of subscription revenue in a hybrid model for its more commercial shows such as big entertainment and drama tentpoles.Neil, who failed miserably in his attempts to launch Discovery-backed British news channel GB News and has since moved to Channel 4, acknowledged that his suggestion can’t be taken up by 2027, when the licence fee will either be abolished or kept on, as not enough of the country has access to broadband.“The most comfortable way out is to continue with the licence fee,” he added. “It will be trebles all around in [BBC headquarters] New Broadcasting House if this happens but the BBC may not even have the structure to survive.