The BBC’s new director general has described the traditional TV licence model as “a busted flush” and “no longer fit for purpose”.<\/p>\n
In his first major public appearance since taking over the BBC six weeks ago, former Google executive Matt Brittin told MPs that the licence fee is “yesterday’s model”.<\/p>\n
The BBC receives most of its funding from the \u00a3180-a-year TV licence, but the number of households paying has declined in recent years, and the broadcaster is discussing reform of the system with the government.<\/p>\n
Brittin said: “We can and should be doing as much as possible on [enforcing] licence fee collection under the current model, but it’s yesterday’s model, it’s a busted flush, it’s no longer fit for purpose, and that’s why we need to make the case for the BBC and a shift of the licence fee model.”<\/p>\n
He did not specify what he wants to replace it, but he and BBC chair Samir Shah suggested the government should reconsider a compulsory household levy, which it previously ruled out.<\/p>\n
Brittin told the House of Commons the Culture, Media and Sport committee on Wednesday that such a levy could be collected through utility bills such as broadband, mobile or electricity.<\/p>\n
If 100% of homes paid through such a scheme, the fee could be reduced from its current level, he said.<\/p>\n
“The challenge is it’s been ruled out, and I can understand the concerns about cost of living and so on, on households, but I think it’s got merits and others have found it to have merits,” Brittin said.<\/p>\n
Shah said a levy “would solve a lot of problems for us, and we’re certainly open to it”, but admitted it “could be seen as, and is effectively another tax”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC’s new director general has described the traditional TV licence model as “a busted flush” and “no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}