Hot on the heels of last week’s hyperbolic press reaction to John Whittingdale’s appointment as culture secretary, the Sunday Times reported that “1,000 a day stop paying for TV licence”. The story was followed up by the Daily Mail on Monday.
Yet it seems fair to say that very little of that is strictly true. The 1,000 figure comes from a Barb survey which measured the number of households that claim to have no TV, or say they haven’t watched it in the past six months. While it is true that number has gone up by 500,000 between the third quarter of 2013 and the fourth quarter of 2014 (hence the 1,000 a day figure), 200,000 of those are new households and the survey makes no reference to whether or not any of those homes watch TV – live or catch-up on other devices such as laptops or mobiles – or whether they pay a licence fee.
Nevertheless, there is plainly an issue for the BBC with the so-called “iPlayer loophole”. Essentially, you need a licence to watch TV as it is broadcast – that is, as part of a live stream – irrespective of what device you use. But you don’t need a licence to watch TV on demand – again, irrespective of the device you use. So live TV on a mobile phone does need a licence but catch-up on a 42-inch plasma doesn’t.
With on-demand viewing on the increase, the BBC is lobbying for a change in the law to close that loophole. An idea that was supported incidentally in the report on the matter from the select committee chaired by John Whittingdale.
But as is clear from the coverage the bigger agenda for the BBC’s critics – and, interestingly, some of its supporters such Lord Burns – is to see the compulsory licence fee replaced by voluntary subscription.
This is a slippery slope and the BBC well knows this. As a consequence it is not doing everything it can to reduce licence fee evasion such as making iPlayer access – which unlike watching free-to-air broadcast signals can be easily controlled – contingent on owning a TV licence.
In the old days, records were kept of TVs that were sold; these were passed on to the people charged with collecting licence fees. When they found a TV apparently not covered by a licence they’d then have to prove the set was being used and only then would they have an evasion case to pursue. In the digital age where all online devices have unique addresses and where mobile applications – including the BBC’s iPlayer app – identify the devices they send content to – the BBC already has mountains of information it could use to pursue licence fee evaders but chooses not to.
Similarly it would be relatively straightforward to make iPlayer access – which unlike watching free-to-air broadcast signals can be easily controlled – contingent on owning a TV licence. Sky, for example, restricts access to Sky Go online and via mobile to people who have paid a TV subscription. But the BBC is reluctant to do even this in case it sets the corporation on what it regards as the slippery slope towards full-on subscription funding.
So as the charter renewal debate begins to unfold in earnest expect to see more of the same. Critics of the BBC – especially in the press – seizing on anything they think might undermine the corporation and especially its funding. Meanwhile, the BBC, anxious not to give ground strategically where it is committed to the licence fee, hopes no one looks too closely at what it isn’t doing to help itself.
Oh, and while we’re at it: far from going to war on the BBC, as both friends and enemies of Auntie predicted he would, John Whittingdale, not withstanding his background as a former PPS to Margaret Thatcher, is pretty supportive of the BBC. Whilst he sees issues with the licence fee in the longer term, he views it as the best way of funding the BBC for the next decade at least.