Former ITV and BBC chairman Michael Grade has made an impassioned plea to retain the licence fee, saying any attempt to make the BBC compete with commercial competitors for revenue would be “the end” of the corporation.
Asked on Radio 4’s Today Programme whether the licence fee should be kept, the Tory peer said: “Absolutely, 100%, the BBC must have a monopoly of revenue.”
“If you put the BBC into competition for revenue, it is the end of the BBC, it cannot be put into competition for revenue.”
The licence fee is expected to remain the main way of funding the BBC for at least the next five years following a deal struck with the Treasury. However, the government’s green paper on the corporation’s future has questioned its suitability in the long term.
The BBC is already struggling with people choosing to exploit a loophole which means they do not have to pay a licence fee if they do not watch TV at the time of broadcast, even if they use services such as iPlayer to watch BBC programmes.
Proposals to make some of the licence fee revenue available to rivals have also been floated.
Grade was speaking on the 60th anniversary of the launch of ITV, which in 1955 became the BBC’s first competitor for UK television audiences.
He said the broadcaster remained in rude health and had a bright future.
“It is in very good shape,” he said. “I think advertisers, and you look at the American model it’s borne out there in an even more competitive market, advertisers can’t get anywhere else the kind of impact they get on free-to-air commercial television.”
“I’ve been reading obituaries of ITV for the last 20 years and I think it’s good for another 20 or 30 years.”
Asked to comment on whether the channel was threatened by the size of the BBC, he said “I couldn’t possibly comment.”
