A mandatory license fee supports minority tastes

The argument

Supporters of a mandatory license fee argue that the case turns on how a broadcaster's funding shapes what it can afford to broadcast. Without a publicly funded model, a commercially viable television network must rely on advertising revenue, and advertising revenue is a function of audience size. The incentive that follows is unambiguous: to maximise what advertisers will pay, a network runs the programmes that attract high volumes of viewers, which are the programmes with mass public appeal. On this view that is not a failure of judgement by commercial broadcasters but simply what their funding model rewards. It does mean, however, that a programme valued intensely by a small audience is worth less in advertising terms than a programme valued mildly by a large one, and so tends not to be made. A mandatory license fee, proponents hold, breaks that link. Because the BBC's income does not depend on how many viewers any particular programme draws, it is free to run programmes with minority appeal without treating a small audience as a loss. Supporters of the position identify two distinct benefits in that freedom. The first is artistic: programme-makers can pursue work that would not survive a test of mass appeal. The second concerns representation, since the same freedom allows the BBC to run highly tailored shows for cultural and ethnic minorities, of which its Asian network is offered as an example. Why the fee must be mandatory rather than voluntary follows from the same reasoning. Minority-appeal programming is, by definition, not what most fee-payers would individually select to fund, so a voluntary arrangement would reintroduce precisely the pressure towards mass appeal that the license fee exists to remove. On this account only a compulsory fee can sustain provision for tastes that no audience-maximising broadcaster has reason to serve, and the BBC license should therefore be mandatory.

Context

The private media business model does not allow for programs with minority appeal. The publicly-funded model through a mandatory license fee is the only way to accommodate minority taste.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The mandatory license fee isn’t the only model that offers the creative freedom to pursue content with minority appeal. A donation system where the BBC could run through voluntary donations or a subscription model that would also allow for the creation of content with minority appeal. As would a system where the government funds the BBC through ordinary tax revenue rather than implementing an additional mandatory license fee. The rise of digital content has also removed many of the barriers to producing content with minority appeal. Even commercial media outlets are able to run small side broadcasts online very cheaply where they can publish content with less public appeal.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] A mandatory license fee is not the only model that allows for programming with minority appeals.