Boris Johnson made the surprising demand as he spoke to potential voters in the North East of England ahead of Thursday’s general election. The BBC announced in June they would put an end to free over-75s licence fees in 2020 despite committing to funding the licences in 2015. Asked whether he would “abolish TV licence fees,” the Prime Minister said: “For everyone? I don’t think this late in the campaign I’m going to be making a spending commitment like that.

“What I certainly think is that the BBC should cough up and pay for the licences for over-75s as they promised to do.

“But at this stage, we are not planning to get rid of all TV licences though I’m certainly looking at it.”

Mr Johnson continued: “You have to ask yourself whether that kind of approach to funding a media organisation still makes sense in the long-term given the way other organisations manage to fund themselves.

“That’s all I would say – the system of funding out of what is, effectively, a general tax it bears reflection.”

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The Government passed the cost of providing free TV licences for pensioners to the BBC in 2015.

But the corporation has claimed that would have cost £745million by 2021/22 and risked the closure of a number of their channels and radio stations.

From June 2020, up to 3.7 million pensioners will lose their free TV licences.

Only low-income households where one person receives the pension credit benefit will still be eligible for a free licence.

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In August, Age UK handed in a petition to Downing Street with 634,334 signatures to save free TV licences for older people.

Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan suggested in November she would consider scrapping the £154.50 a year licence and replacing it with a Netflix-style subscription.

But media analysts warned the change is unlikely as charging viewers to stream BBC programmes would undermine licensing deals it strikes with broadcasters in other countries for popular shows such as David Attenborough’s Planet Earth and hit dramas like Sherlock.

A BBC executive said: “If you turn it into a for-profit subscription service, then that is not a public broadcaster.”

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Peter Bazalgette, chairman of ITV, added: “Technology now allows turning the licence fee into a subscription service. But there are strong public interest arguments against it.”

Mr Johnson’s former editor at the Telegraph Charles Moore thinks the government should break up the corporation with “certain bits”.

This includes allowing arts and documentary channel BBC 4 to carry on through voluntary membership modelled on the National Trust of British historic landmarks.

From June 2020 only around 1.5 million households will be eligible for a free TV licence under the new scheme.

Only households with someone in receipt of Pension Credit will be able to claim a free TV licence, meaning around 3.7million Over-75s will be stung by the annual £154.50 fee.

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