The Stage

Elstein report favours license fee abolition

Published Tuesday 24 February 2004 at 13:45 by Joanna Taylor

Former Channel 5 chief executive David Elstein has unveiled a radical report advising eventual abolition of the BBC licence fee and a new funding system for public service broadcasting.

The document, called Beyond the Charter - BBC 2006, coincides with an intense debate about reform of the BBC and is intended to influence the government in the run up to charter review.

A core recommendation by Elstein’s Broadcasting Policy Group is that the statutory licence fee should be phased out in three years’ time. From 2007, it is suggested that the compulsory payment should be gradually reduced and slowly replaced by a subscription charge for the BBC’s digital services, akin to the current Sky arrangement.

It continues: “Once analogue transmission ceases [the Government has set 2010 as the switch-off date] and it becomes technically feasible for all viewers to be charged, the licence fee should be abolished.”

He says that a “contestable fund” should be introduced to protect vulnerable public service genres, whereby all broadcasters and producers can bid for support for arts, current affairs or educational programmes.

The provocative paper, which also recommends the BBC’s governance system be removed, was established last May by the then Conservative shadow culture secretary John Whittingdale. His replacement, Julie Kirkbride, launched the document at a press conference on Tuesday.

Its conclusions had courted controversy even before publication, with two committee members refusing to add their name to the report in recent months.

Channel 4 consultant Peter Ibbotson expressed concerns that, if implemented, the changes could lead to a weakened, privatised BBC. Alex Mahon, commercial director of independent company Talkback, worried the funding recommendations were impractical.

Publication of Beyond the Charter comes ahead of a meeting of the BBC board of governors. It is expected to initiate the search for a new director-general following the resignation of Greg Dyke in the wake of the Hutton report.

In 2002 Tessa Jowell promised the survival of the licence fee for at least another 15 years but at the end of last year changed tack, saying, a “root and branch” review of the BBC’s purpose and funding would take place between 2004 and 2006 to coincide with some of the most hostile criticism in the BBC’s history.