Should the BBC's licence fee be axed?

The licence fee worked well in the early days of the BBC, when it was just one and a half radio stations.

Then came television and that was all right, too.

Things started to change, however, with the arrival of ITV in 1955. Now I'm not sure a licence fee is the best way to pay for what the BBC has become.

It has grown enormously, often in a knee-jerk fashion. It makes commercial decisions I think are questionable for a BBC funded by a licence fee.

Merchandising, for example - the sale of programmes makes sense, but why books and toys and things such as that?

Branding is another issue. A huge percentage of BBC output is self-promotion, slick promos produced by big ad agencies to push its programmes.

A great deal of licence fee-payers' money goes on this, and I think it is an appalling waste. I would rather the BBC filled its breaks with worthwhile programming rather than glossy ads promoting its 'image'.

The growth of the Internet is another problem for the Beeb. People all over the world who do not pay a UK licence fee are accessing programmes and services funded by licence fee payers in this country. I think the BBC may also be running services it does not need to run - Radio 1 for example. Pop music can stand by itself commercially - look at MTV - so why do we need a publicly-funded BBC network?

I do believe the BBC should concentrate on its public service remit.

Too much of its output is duplicated elsewhere and I don't think the BBC should expect a fee to remake what already exists.

Yet again, anyone allowed to broadcast "free-to-air" to the public should have a public service remit.

By public service broadcasting I mean things such as in-depth analysis of current issues on every level.

The BBC has excellent resources to do this - it may help by renaming Panorama, which the public still perceives as tired old-style TV journalism.

Just because something looks or sounds familiar doesn't mean it is good, and regional programming is in particular need of rejuvenation.

What little daily regional television there is now is glib, formulaic and complacent.

I would also include as public service broadcasting entertainment such as Bremner, Bird and Fortune, plus quality drama that highlights social issues while remaining entertaining and watchable.

Much childrens' television does this already. And instead of those back-to-back trailers the BBC runs now, the gaps they fill could feature programmes made by people who actually have something to say.

That is public service broadcasting.

So I should like to see a licence fee that was collected by OFCOM and then distributed to all broadcasters proportionally, in relation to the amount of public service broadcasting they transmit.

It is politically essential that the BBC should not be funded out of taxes - it has to retain what independence it has to provide us with an objective viewpoint.

Anything else the BBC produces, which is not public service broadcasting, should be paid for by a digital subscription.

Five turkeys from the BBC:

El Dorado

Triangle

Target

Kilroy

Crackerjack

No says JULIAN COLE Evening Press columnist and TV critic

LET'S admit straight away that the BBC licence fee is an anomaly and a hang-over from an earlier, simpler age.

But so is the National Health Service and we are better off with it than without it. The licence fee sits at the heart of what the BBC does, what it is and how it operates.

The scrapping of the licence fee, as proposed yesterday by a broadcasting panel set up by the Conservative Party, would lead to a diminishment of a vital broadcaster which, for the most part, is envied and admired around the world.

The argument against the present system often runs along the lines that the licence fee is a "poll tax" which can no longer be supported in a multi-channel digital age.

Thanks mostly to Sky, goes this argument, viewers are increasingly used to paying for a particular channel or service. While the modern television age is more complicated, and more fractured, than the era which saw the birth of the BBC, there is still much to be said for the way in which, via the licence fee, we all own the Corporation.

This is our broadcaster, it belongs to the people - and not to an assortment of press barons or foreign broadcasters looking to make a quick buck over here.

Most attention on the licence fee concentrates on the main television stations, yet even the most ardent critic of the BBC would have to acknowledge that there is much more to the Corporation than that.

For £116 a year, the BBC runs terrestrial and satellite television channels, alongside national and local radio networks, World Service radio, news and documentary teams, original drama and entertainment, internet services, educational programmes, orchestras, concerts and social campaigns, as well as training and support for British production skills across all areas.

Split up all these services, or have some funded by subscription, and you would see the Corporation crumble.

The licence fee may seem unfair but it is simple and straight-forward. Just imagine if the fee were to be replaced by a network of subscription services.

The viewer/listener would pay a bit here for one service and another bit there for that service.

Such a costly and complicated method would be an economic nightmare - and would probably end up costing the viewer almost as much as the licence fee.

It is hard to see how we would be better off with a weakened, split-up BBC that may be forced to sell its services to us one by one. Or even, horror of horrors, start accepting adverts.

On the advert front, the BBC weakens its own case by running so many wretched promos-cum-adverts.

Yet it is still refreshing to be able to watch programmes uninterrupted. And in a fiercely competitive world, could television support more advertising? I doubt it. So while it may seem an anomaly, the licence fee is still the best way to pay for and maintain a broadcaster that, for all its faults, still deserves a place at the centre of our national life.

Five greats from the BBC:

State Of Play

Our Friends In The North

Holding On

The Lakes (first series only)

Dunkirk

Updated: 09:29 Wednesday, February 25, 2004