Council Tax Levy for BBC Funding Proposed

Although this website has made the editorial decision to avoid entering the debate on how state owned public service broadcaster BBC should be funded, a notable development has prompted a news article on this subject.

License to Change, BBC Future Funding is a report that has been published by the House of Lords. The report suggests breaking the link between TV ownership and the charge, by replacing the TV license with an additional charge on council tax (local government) bills. This would allow for lower income households to pay less.

Other ideas include a ring-fenced element of income tax, which would again provide for the charge to be varied according to income. Perhaps a less drastic idea is a reformed version of the TV license fee, which like the methods mentioned above, would feature discounts for low income households.

The report also suggests that the BBC should expand commercial operations, including subscription services, but does note that any domestic subscription service could compromise the BBC’s principal of universal access.

The reported also advised against some previously suggested funding models, including fully subscription based services, direct government grant and advertising.

At the time of writing, 75% of the BBC’s income(amounting to £3.75 billion) comes from the license fee, which has been frozen until 2024. The remainder of the income comes from commercial operations such as UKTV in the UK, and the worldwide Britbox joint venture with ITV.

Website Updates: Changes to What Is Covered

The author has recently obtained a new full-time job, meaning time is limited for maintaining this website. Therefore, to enable the website to continue, changes need to be made.

Updates will now only take place when time allows. News will be restricted to major stories relating to satellite, cable, or terrestrial TV. I will soon catch up with stories missed over the past 2 weeks.

Only major stories relating to the larger streaming platforms will be covered. These are catch up services BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, My5, and DPlay/Discovery+, and premium services Britbox, Disney+, Netflix, and Now TV.

Irish content will still be included, but is now a low priority so will not be updated for some time. Last update dates will be introduced on all resource type pages.

I intend on gradually simplifying the structure of the website, so some pages will move, or be merged together.

Thanks for reading.