The BBC will face “profound jeopardy” over its future unless it embraces significant changes to its funding, its outgoing director general has said, as he signalled his support for an overhaul of the licence fee.
Speaking to the Guardian, Tim Davie called for supporters of the corporation to “stand up and fight” for it, amid increased hostility from its commercial and political critics.
He said the BBC would be “in trouble” without serious changes to its funding model and more flexibility over the services it offers.
In a sign that the BBC leadership is looking at changes that would draw more households into funding the broadcaster, Davie said he did not want to simply increase the amount demanded from each licence fee payer.
“We do want reform,” he said. “We do want reform of the licence fee. However, we’re not just about driving the amount we get from households higher.
“My biggest fears are that we just roll on and think it’s going to be OK. We don’t reform enough. At that point, we don’t get regulatory reform and more flexibility. That’s my biggest worry. And I think, if we don’t do that, we’re in trouble.”
However, Davie rejected a suggestion that the BBC should be funded by advertising or subscriptions – options raised in a government paper on the public broadcaster’s future released last month.
“If you go to advertising or subscription, you’re no longer a universal service,” he said. “It’s a societal choice.”
The BBC is in the process of examining how the licence fee could be made more progressive for some groups. Samir Shah, the BBC’s chair, has previously suggested switching to a household levy that could be collected through council tax.
It would remove the need to enforce licence fee payment through controversial home visits. It would also allow the payment to be adjusted so that poorer groups pay less.
However, the move would be controversial as it could remove the ability of households not to pay the levy.
Davie, who resigned last November after the fallout from the BBC’s edit of a Donald Trump speech, said he was opposed to a hybrid funding system, in which licence fee payers funded services such as BBC News and an additional payment was needed to watch BBC drama.
“What we’re fundamentally opposed to is splitting the BBC up by genre,” he said. “If you did ‘the drama is over there, the news is here,’ local news, which I think is really important, suddenly becomes very small, very fast. That would be the end of public service broadcasting.”
After concerns that his resignation, and that of the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, came after political interference by the BBC’s board, Davie said he was in favour of changes that increased the broadcaster’s independence.
“I’m a big fan of the independence of the BBC,” he said. “We need governance reform. I believe in an independent BBC, and so do our audience. We did a survey of 40 million people. I wrote to 40 million people. The biggest thing they wanted was an independent BBC.”
Davie repeated his concern that attacks on the BBC over its errors had been “weaponised” by opponents. “Weaponisation is not about the battle of an individual cock-up or one fact,” he said. “It’s about proportionality.”
His intervention comes with talks beginning in earnest over the future of the BBC’s royal charter and funding. The current charter is due to expire at the end of 2027.
The BBC has faced significant financial pressure as the licence fee has lost about one-third of its real value since 2010. Meanwhile, non-payment of the fee, which stands at £174.50 a year, has been slowly increasing.
Davie indicated he was pushing for more leeway from the government and the media regulator Ofcom to allow the BBC to innovate, as media consumption continues to switch to digital platforms.
Last year, the Guardian revealed the BBC was considering an outsourcing drive to cut costs. Such plans would prove controversial inside the broadcaster.
“The truth is, the jeopardy is high,” Davie said. “The BBC has never really had profound jeopardy. What do I mean by that? It has, of course, had lots of drama and editorial crises in its time. But that’s actually not deathly jeopardy for the BBC.
“What represents deathly jeopardy for the BBC is if it’s not relevant … If we’re going to survive, we need permission to reform.
“It feels the jeopardy is high, and we have got to stand up and fight for it.”
Davie also said the decline of public service media across the world had led to negative consequences.
“We’re seeing a thinning of public service media around the world,” he said. “The situation is perilous. You look at many other countries, public service media is doing brilliant work, but it’s not now mainstream. The whole thing coming together as one market has been brilliant for the UK. It is really important to who we are, from a societal point of view.”
The BBC is searching for Davie’s successor, who will lead the its negotiations over its new charter. With the corporation facing huge competition and heightened political hostility from Trump and Reform UK, some in the BBC had been hoping Davie might change his mind over leaving.
Some of the names touted to succeed Davie are Jay Hunt, a former BBC and Channel 4 executive who is now at Apple, the BBC’s former chief content officer Charlotte Moore, and the former Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon.
