Since the end of analogue transmission in 2012, we’ve watched TV via digital broadcast. Now the BBC and other broadcasters are getting ready to change to online-only broadcasting over the next decade, switching to streaming rather than sending broadcasts by aerial – and the BBC seems ready to lead the charge.
As budgets tighten, saving money by moving to streaming makes sense. But the older viewers who still value scheduled programming – and who are most loyal to the BBC as an institution – could be left behind; a fifth of people over 65 in the UK use the internet less than once a month.
So, should the BBC go online-only? The i Paper’s TV editor, Emily Baker, and journalist and former BBC presenter Janet Street-Porter offer their perspectives.
The BBC is in dire financial straits. The gap between its costs and revenue is chasmic, and its cash reserves dropped by 66 per cent in the last financial year, falling from £369m to £125m. In real terms, the licence fee has lost £1.3bn in value since 2017. As a result, the BBC is on a quest to cut spending by £500m.
A problem as catastrophic as this one requires radical change. And that includes going online only.
One insider told The i Paper earlier this year that keeping traditional broadcasts going until 2045 would cost public service broadcasters £1bn. That cost could well be passed onto customers; if it weren’t, that would mean even more pressure on the money that the BBC has to work with. Why not avoid all of that by getting ahead of a trend which is only going in one direction?
The corporation is just one of many asking the Government to turn off Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), with an aim to have the channels switched off by the mid-2030s. Ministers have said there is a “strong case” to have Freeview shut down by 2034 (when current contracts end), with media minister Ian Murray calling the move a case of “not ‘when’ but ‘if'”.
In other words, it’s already happening. It might be the very thing that helps to plug the £500 million hole and saves the BBC.
And it is worth saving. That’s an argument I can’t believe we’re still having. The recent Romesh Ranganathan-fronted “What has the BBC ever done for me?” advert – in which he reminded us that the corporation entertains us with The Traitors, Strictly and EastEnders, keeps us informed with respected, unbiased news, brings us music from the biggest stars and festivals, and even keeps our children quiet for half an hour at a time – barely scratched the surface of what the BBC really has done for us since its creation in 1922.
King Charles’s coronation, Blue Planet, World Cup finals, statements and instructions from our Prime Minister during a global pandemic, Dirty Den giving Angie divorce papers, Abba winning Eurovision, the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, JR being shot, Kristin’s reveal as the person who shot JR, royal weddings, Princess Diana’s funeral, The Great British Bake Off, Smithy and Nessa finally getting married, Alan Carr winning The Celebrity Traitors against all the odds, Queen Elizabeth II lying in state.
I could go on and on and on. Because the BBC isn’t just TV and radio stations, nor is it just another news source. It’s a community builder. Think of any major event in our collective lives over the past 100 years, and the images you recall are likely those captured and shared by the BBC.
Through it, we laugh, we cry, we learn and we grieve. If it were to end for something as mercantile, as soulless as a lack of funds, we would be losing a part of our national identity.
Those who oppose the BBC going online-only also cite community as a reason why it shouldn’t happen. Elderly people, disabled people and those living in remote areas will be left behind, they say, left to miss out on all the brilliant things the BBC does (a sympathy not extended to the 2,000 BBC staff members who are about to lose their jobs). And while it’s a rather patronising, perhaps even imperious, take on the capabilities of these sections of society, it’s hard to argue against that logic.
But the chances of that actually happening are overexaggerated. Just 330,000 households are expected to need extra support with the switch to online-only TV, and the number of homes without broadband is expected to stand at just 220,000 by 2034. Yes, it might mean that we need to spend time with the more vulnerable people in our lives, teaching them how to use iPlayer, getting their broadband set up – but we should see that as another community-building exercise, a way to do our bit without simply chucking money at the problem.
What’s more, there are already Government plans in place to ensure that broadband coverage is available in all parts of the UK by 2032, and it’s down to those in power to ensure that it is affordable.
It’s crunch time for the BBC. Its efforts to revamp the licence fee aren’t working. Further cuts mean more job losses, more programme culls, and less of what makes the BBC great. A move to online-only television is an easy, simple, inevitable change that will make a sizeable contribution to the corporation’s coffers. To deny such a lifeline is to condemn the BBC to certain death.