Andrew Bridgen discusses the BBC license fee

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen has blasted the BBC for not moving onto a subscription model before the rise of online streaming services. He told BBC Radio 5 Live host Nicky Campbell that the broadcaster could have been “bigger than Netflix” but instead opted to cling to the tv licence fee model. 

Mr Bridgen told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I didn’t get what I wanted in 2014 at [the BBC] charter renewal when I wanted decriminalisation of the TV licence got into the deregulation bill.

“But your employees in the Lord’s hoofed it back out and it wasn’t doing the BBC any favours.

“If you’d gone subscription in 2014 after the 25th charter renewal, you would have been bigger than Netflix now.

“You could have gone worldwide sold to England world, put your back catalogue on a streaming service, and you’d be in a far better financial position than you are now and the projection of soft power for the UK would have been brilliant.”

JUST IN: Historic hotel to be closed almost all year to house refugees

“I think it’s almost criminal, criminal mismanagement of a great national asset you had on a platter, and your technology as I predicted in 2014 is making the licence fee… you hung to it like some sort of life raft and it just the stone that dragged you down.”

A BBC listener named Tony rang into Nicky Campbell’s show to complain that the BBC is not an “up to date service”.

Tony said: “Over the Christmas period, the average age of the films being shown were from the 1950s.

“That is so out of date, and it’s just rehashing the same old stuff year after year after year.

BBC national anthem proposals discussed on Jeremy Vine

“That is not an up-to-date service. Line of Duty, we love it. The Offenders, another great series. But you could count them on your hand.”

Earlier in the show, Conservative MP Julian Knight argued that the licence fee has to stay for the short term. 

He said: “The challenge of funding is that more and more people are declaring ‘no license needed’. There was an 11 percent increase in the last two years.

“People who use YouTube, and use their phones. They don’t feel any connection to the BBC. Over the next decade and more, the BBC needs to move towards a subscription-means service to gain revenues.”

DON’T MISS:

BBC national anthem return sparks furious backlash in Scotland [VIDEO]
GB News’ Isabel Webster clashes with GP as free prescriptions face axe [INTERVIEW]
Edward Colston: A very dark day for our legal system has just unfolded [COMMENT]

A recent poll by Savanta ComRes for the Defund the BBC campaign group found that two-thirds of people would support a nationwide vote on the corporation’s funding, while only 13 percent said they would not support the plan.

The poll also found that 49 percent of viewers say the BBC’s Christmas Day schedule was poor value for money, with only 23 percent saying it offered a good return on the £159 licence fee.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Our own research paints a very different picture from this snap poll, with the Licence Fee the preferred way of funding the BBC, over advertising and subscription.”

They added: “We offer great value to every Licence Fee payer and the last 12 months has seen the BBC deliver huge audiences and critical praise for a range of shows and content, including on most of today’s front pages.”

Source: Read Full Article