How Should We Fund the BBC?

About ten years ago, I stopped watching TV.

I had a hi-tech, easy-to-programme TV recorder which could record 100s of hours of programmes, effectively creating my own TV channel.  I never managed to see much of it.  It made me realise that, like so many others, my appetite for content was too great – and I was watching less TV.

But this is what tipped the balance: a young woman I knew told me she had never owned a TV.  Her parents cherished an alternative lifestyle.  TV ownership was rejected in favour of a more attentional family life; conversations around a table at meal times; reading and radio listening was encouraged; live music and theatre-going too; as were creative pursuits.

Since leaving home, she had learned another language, now played another musical instrument and undertook all sorts of creative  projects, large and small, including restoring her own canal boat.  Her evenings were enviably productive, I thought.

Initially it was a 3-month experiment, then extended to 6-months.  I sold the TV.  It was no hardship listening to more radio.  I became a late adopter of podcasts, which had refreshingly non-corporate production values.  Slowly I found more focus and greater concentration.  I read even more (and more widely); wrote more.  I didn’t learn a new language or start to play my first musical instrument.  But unexpectedly, my social life blossomed since I had more time for projects arising from volunteering.  My ‘work’-life balance (I’m retired) has never been better.

Within a few years I became increasingly aware of the importance of nurturing and safeguarding my attention, seeing it as an individual and a social good in its own right.  Conversely, I noted the high value big corporates put upon capturing our attention in their sticky webs of onscreen content.

Now I sense a debate is gathering pace, currently focussed on measurable harms visited upon children and young people through their attention being captured and redirected for purposes that benefit corporate and shareholder profits, whilst costing individuals and societies dearly.

It’s hard to frame this aspect of why I won’t watch TV (and now use other screens sparingly), without sounding like a crank or a conspiracy theorist.  I’m not Everyman.  Nor am I playing the equivalent of the vegan card about TV viewing, my main focus here.  I am (currently) a minority voice.  But might there be a growing minority awakening to how precious our attention is and that we must safeguard it?  (Too late we are realising the same about privacy issues online).

Late last year Donald Trump decided to sue the BBC for $15 billion.  A Panorama news segment about the infamous 6 January 2021 march on Congress appeared to show incontrovertibly that Trump had incited an insurrectionist mob.  He was livid.  It was poor editing.

I told a friend that if the BBC incurred sizeable costs defending the case, even more so if they lost  it (the commentariat seems unanimous that Trump doesn’t have a strong case), then damn it! I might yet buy a BBC licence.  But I still wouldn’t watch TV.  My friend asked: do you listen to BBC Radio much?  What about the World Service?  Do you support the values underpinning the BBC’s royal charter?  (Yes, a little and yes, I thought so.)  Perhaps you should buy a licence, she said.

The repercussions arising from Trump’s favourite game of ‘Uproar’ – the resignations of the Director General and the CEO of BBC News – overshadowed that the BBC’s charter was under review.

Some weeks on, I came to a settled position and responded to a government green paper for the first time.  It’s called the Britain’s Story, the Next Chapter and it invites all stakeholders, including the public, to have their say about the future of the BBC’s charter renewal, including alternative funding models under consideration.  The deadline for public submissions ended on 10th March, 2026.

I’m against advertising on BBC TV or radio.  It could easily introduce pressures from corporate advertisers to steal our attention for their benefit, not ours, contrary to how the BBC has always operated, adhering to its values for the public good.  And I still won’t buy a licence in its present form.  With a current licence, I could easily be sucked back into watching TV content, initially on my iPad or MacBook, the thin end of the wedge.  However, I am willing to pay something.

There are justifiable concerns about falling revenue from the licence fee: in 2024/25 £3.7bn was raised through it, about two-thirds of the BBC’s total income.  This is collected from 80% of all households in that period; 2.4m fewer than at its peak in 2017/18 (26.2m).  Thus it’s not surprising that the green paper is considering options to reduce some concessions and there are hints of a new BBC radio and podcast licence to boost licence fee funds.  I would subscribe to that.

If it was pitched at a reasonable price, I would consider an additional voluntary payment too.  This thought led me to check the green paper and to search the BBC’s website to find out if there is any proposal, or an existing facility, for the public to offer voluntary donations, instead of or in addition to, their licence fee.  I found nothing.  Nor on the TV Licensing Authority website.

How many householders have declared they have no TV and claim their licence fee exemption, I wondered.  I drew another blank, even on the TV Licensing Authority website.  Whilst evasion is a known factor in falling licence fee revenue, which is addressed in the green paper, the rising numbers of those exempt from licences, including concessions, isn’t addressed – other than hinting at changes to the concessions.

Lumping together all of those exemptions, isn’t it possible that many would consider donations to the BBC, if invited to do so in a positive and accessible way, for clearly specified purposes?  If this cohort continues to grow, possibly fed by concerns about protecting their on-screen attention, wouldn’t inviting voluntary contributions be sensible?  In securing an improved secure funding stream for the BBC in the settlement, neither the government’s green paper nor the BBC have this on their radar.  Yet the BBC remains one of the most trusted media companies in the world, and are better placed than most – if not any others – to address such public concerns.

aking this a step further, I discovered that the BBC has two charities, one well known, the other I’d never heard of: Children in Need and BBC Media Action (formerly known as the BBC World Service Trust – which gives a sense of its charitable purposes and its international focus).  Couldn’t a third BBC charity be formed with a domestic focus, specifically to support the independence and values of the BBC, supplementing the licence fee?  Isn’t that a good cause at this juncture, as outlined above?  It could be tricky for all sorts of reasons that I can’t pretend to understand.

In my submission to the green paper, I suggested the BBC be allowed to invite public donations and/or a domestically-focused BBC charity, as above.

What do you think?  Do you share any of my views?  What other views do you have about this?  Will you be registering your views on the green consultation paper?  There’s little time left and some large issues at stake.

© Kit Pearce