New research commissioned by WatchTVAbroad.com1 reveals that 51% of Brits think the licence fee should be scrapped (33% don’t think it should be scrapped and 16% aren’t sure).
When asked why they wanted it scrapped, a quarter (28%) said the BBC was too woke, 47% thought the Corporation should be able to stand on its own two feet and 39% think the Beeb pays its presenters too much. Nearly half (45%) don’t believe it’s good value for money, 41% say it’s outdated and 38% think it penalises people who want to watch and record TV output from other providers.
A third (35%) don’t believe the BBC is politically neutral and 32% say there’s no need for public service broadcasting any more.
A total of 14% of respondents admitted to not paying for a TV licence fee when they required one.
Jeff Richey, TV and film analyst at WatchTVAbroad.com:
“The licence fee’s days are numbered and Auntie has a fight on her hands. The simple truth is that the BBC and its funding model were creatures of another time. When the British public were asked to start paying the combined radio and TV licence fee in 1946, the country was adjusting to life following the Second World War. There was no choice but to watch BBC programming because there was simply no alternative.
“Fast forward 76 years and it’s very difficult for viewers to understand why they must pay one TV station for the privilege of watching another. To many, it just doesn’t seem fair and it’s only going to feel stranger as the on-demand generation, who grew up with streaming, come to dominate the working population.
“The writing has been on the wall for years and the BBC could have got ahead of it. Instead the can got kicked down the road and the licence fee now seems like a tired relic. It’s a shame the debate over its future now overshadows output that many people still regard as world class and worth paying for in a more conventional way.”
