So it’s not exactly like being stuck on Bear Gryll’s desert island or wandering around Naked and Afraid, but the BBC has examined the impact of starving the good British public of the corporation’s TV and radio programmes for “a little over a week”. And what, pray tell, was the psychological and emotional damage caused by this barbarous act of media savagery? Yes, you got it, after nine days of Beeb starvation the whole project morphed into: “I Want to be a Licence Fee Payer … Get Me Out of Here!” According to Auntie, at the start of the project – in a touching masterstoke called Life Without the BBC – 48 of 70 households were keen on paying nothing and not getting the BBC, or a reduced licence fee. And at the end, well, “households missed advert-free radio and TV” and viewers “expressed frustration” at not being able to watch sport coverage, dramas like The Fall and Peaky Blinders, and alternatives to Radio 2, Panorama and Question Time. Nick North, director of BBC Audiences, calls it a “rigorous study”. No word on whether John Whittingdale and family were participants.
