In defence of the BBC and the licence fee

Everyone has their own fall back phrase and actions they use to describe their feelings when something has infuriated them. Mine usually involves the word “ridiculous” and a subsequent blog post that’s wonderfully unselfconsciously self-righteous, but that’s me.

The standard fall back phrase when the BBC produces a TV or radio show that someone doesn’t like is “it’s a waste of licence fee payers’ money”.* For the record, over 75% of BBC revenue comes from licence fee income so it is a large part of the broadcaster’s income that comes from the public so the loosely defined public has a right to get their money’s worth.

It’s kind of an easy target really is the poor old BBC as one is paying money directly to the institution for the programming and journalism one receives. One wouldn’t say it’s a waste of your weekly shop at ASDA money when ITV broadcasts a terrible show, despite the fact that said money is indirectly paying for the production of said show in the form of advertising. Although it’s something of a stupid concept, it’s vaguely valid in its own roundabout kind of way.

Firstly, the annoying semantics. Technically it isn’t a waste as you pay your licence fee for the BBC to produce programming on television or radio. Throwing said money into a giant hole and burying it or buying all the tickets to Glastonbury and not showing up would be a waste of money. If the BBC broadcasts something you don’t like, that would be a misuse of licence fee payers’ money, not a waste as there is guaranteed to be someone out there who liked the broadcast which made it viable.

Anyway, semantics aside, the real bone of contention I have with the lazy, fallback phrase outlined is that I find it very difficult to believe people do not get their money’s worth from the most renowned and admired public service broadcaster in the world.

For example, if you just watch the national and local news on the BBC five nights a week (that’s 4 million people on average), that’s around 270 hours of broadcasting you have watched a year meaning you pay around £1.90 an hour to watch. Which sounds like a lot.

However, no-one watches just the news on the BBC. From Eastenders to Match of the Day to QI to Top Gear to Strictly Come Dancing, there are shows on the BBC that draw in huge numbers viewers each and every week, all with large production values that must cost a bomb to make. According to the Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board, BBC1 and 2 alone have an average 21.3% audience share of TV viewers which is a whole lot of hours and licence fee being justified.

Then factor in the other aspects of the BBC’s output from a radio service that has a total listening share of 54.5% nationally, a news website that offers full multimedia interactivity and as up-to-date stories as any paid for media, various digital output at specialised audiences (from children to minority social groups) and the ongoing digital switchover to give more people the chance to have more access to more channels.

Taking into account all of the services the BBC offers, it is something of a miracle the revenue it produces is stretched so far.

Factor in all of this and even the staunchest non-BBC user probably swallows up more BBC output than they realise. Your commute to work? Might well have some BBC on the radio. Want to check up on the latest news? The BBC News website might be your first port of call. Need to keep up with the latest football scores? BBC Sport online is at least the equal of its competitors in this field, and with TV highlights to be found on the website to boot. The hours consuming BBC output soon adds up. It would be a very interesting experiment to see just how long you spend using some form of BBC service. And when I say “interesting” the result would be, not the procedure.

Yes, the BBC does screw up occasionally with its choice of programming and its ‘impartial’ journalism but to get either of these spot-on 100% of the time is a fool’s errand and fool’s expectation.

*Disclaimer; due to circumstances dictating that I am living at home with my parents once again, I am not currently paying for a TV licence. Go forth and state my reason to have an opinion on the matter is invalid.