The Woman’s Owncolumnist has her say on the BBC, AI and chatbots and condiments
WE KNOW BEST
It’s about time the BBC started listening to us.
It’s more than 100 years old, can cost you well over £100 every year and sees 3,500 of us prosecuted every month. Some scary secret law that you weren’t aware of? Nope, it’s a thing that 97% of us have in our homes and it’s such a part of everyday life, we barely notice it any more. Got it yet? It’s your telly. Or rather the good old BBC, the most benign sounding British thing ever. As much of the fabric of our lives as the NHS, queues and talking about the weather.
But for many it’s not the cuddly Auntie* it once was. The licence fee went up by more than £10 this month to £169.50 for colour, and it will be £57 for black and white, after being frozen during the pandemic and even the big boss of the Beeb, Tim Davie, admits it’s a busted flush.
(*Ever wondered why it’s called Auntie? When it was developed 102 years ago, the administrators were largely middle class and demonstrated they knew what was best for listeners and, later, viewers. This was derided by critics as ‘Auntie knows best syndrome’. Hence the shortened version of ‘Auntie’.)
Despite pointing out that the licence fee (and you must pay it even if you don’t watch the BBC, basically it’s a tax on having a telly) is less than £4 a week, Mr Davie has finally acknowledged what Beeb bashers have been saying for a while – times have changed.
Sixteen million of us now subscribe to Netflix UK and 23 million to Sky. The average age of the BBC viewer is 61 and only one in 20 under-34s watch any live BBC programmes.
Simply put the licence fee may have worked when there were only three or even five channels to choose from but now there are literally hundreds. Younger generations have grown ` up with paid-for streaming services, like YouTube and TikTok.
So why should we stump up for something many of us no longer use? And why should any media organisation have the right to criminalise you if you refuse or forget to pay?
Some of the horror stories of the people who have been hounded and prosecuted by the BBC for not paying their licence fee are chilling. Many of them are elderly and vulnerable and most are women.
A hospitalised pensioner, a wife caring for her stroke victim husband and, irony, a retired BBC lawyer receiving daily ‘threatening’ letters to pay up are just
