The mandatory license stifles innovation

The argument

If the license fee were not mandatory, and people could choose voluntarily whether to give money to the BBC, it would force the BBC to become more imaginative in the ways it appeals to its users. A guaranteed income removes the need to persuade anyone of anything. An organisation that must prove its value each year in order to be paid has a continual reason to improve; one that is paid regardless has only whatever internal motivation it can generate. The drive to prove value and to persuade people to hand over their cash voluntarily would lead to more innovation in resource allocation, in content generation and in delivery. Each of those follows from the same pressure: money would have to be spent where audiences could see the result, programmes would have to be made that someone would actively choose to fund, and they would have to reach viewers in the ways viewers actually want them. The evidence offered is the BBC's own record. In responding to the changing media landscape of the 21st century it has lacked innovation, and has instead sought to copy models from the private sector after they were already proven elsewhere. Radio 1 and Radio 2 were a response to the emerging pirate radio models. BBC News 24 was a response to Sky News rolling out a 24-hour news channel. Reality TV voting on programmes came from the early adoption of the format by ITV and Channel 4. The pattern is consistent: in each case the idea originated outside the BBC, with organisations that had to attract an audience to survive, and the BBC followed. An institution funded by a mandatory levy has no comparable incentive to go first, which is the sense in which the mandatory license stifles innovation.

Context

Market failures are major drivers of innovation. Without exposure to market failures, the BBC will never be a media or broadcasting innovator.

Premises

Counter-arguments

- The i-Player, which Netflix is an imitation of, was invented and rolled out by the BBC years before. - The BBC's spending has given rise to the most successful creative industry in the world (per capita).

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] True as stated, but guaranteed income is the standard argument for this funding model as much as against it. It is what allows programming that would not survive a ratings or subscription test — minority-language services, local radio, arts coverage, children's output without advertising — and the premise treats one side of a trade-off as though it were the whole. [Rejecting P2] The premise assumes that competing for voluntary payment produces imagination rather than caution. Subscription and advertising markets generate their own conservatism, since both reward the reliably popular, and voluntary funding adds a free-rider problem for a service that cannot easily be withheld from non-payers. [Rejecting P3] The examples do not show what they are offered to show: responding to a new format is what any broadcaster does, and the list is selective. The counter names the iPlayer, which preceded comparable commercial services, and the BBC Micro and the development work on teletext and digital radio could be added. Public-service broadcasting has also long been criticised from the opposite direction, for crowding out commercial innovation — a charge that presupposes the very capacity this premise denies.