The BBC has been a mainstay of British life for over a hundred years. The broadcaster’s news bulletins, soap operas, children’s programming, comedies, plays, concerts, sports coverage and nature documentaries have shaped the nation’s identity, and won the enduring loyalty of audiences around the world.
Since 1922, the BBC’s offerings have been funded by its license fee – a fee originally linked to the purchase of a wireless radio, Charlotte Higgins, Chief Culture Writer and author of The Guardian This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC, notes. Today, that fee comes to £159 per year, or 43p per day.
But this week, the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, announced that the government would freeze the BBC license fee for the next two years, forcing the BBC to make deep cuts to its programming. Although the announcement was clearly designed to distract from calls by Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister, it is part of a much larger battle about the broadcaster’s future.
Millions of pounds are at stake, and so is the hallmark of a storied, citizen-minded British institution, which arguably represents the character of the UK itself. Guardian media reporter Jim Waterson says Michael Safdie There are practical reasons to eliminate license fees – but the real question is whether politicians are willing to make a good effort to find alternative sources of funding.
Photo: Will Oliver/EPA
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