Licence fee anger but the BBC had no choice for over 75s

“Most over 75s are going to have to start paying for a TV licence again. 

The annual charge – now £154.50 per household – covers almost everything the BBC does, from EastEnders to East Midlands Today.  But without one, you’re not allowed to watch live TV on any channel, even if you only ever tune in for Love Island. 

It was scrapped for older viewers by then-Chancellor Gordon Brown in 1999.  But in the midst of austerity plus growing concern at so-called ‘pensioner perks’ such as the Winter Fuel Allowance, his successor George Osborne decided that by 2020, the BBC would have to bear the cost. 

Doing so would mean a bill of £745m, about a fifth of its budget.  Put another way, more than it spends on all of its national and local radio services combined. 

Unwilling to make savage cutbacks to its output, the BBC has decided that only poorer pensioners will continue to receive a free licence. 

Regardless of what some commentators might suggest, this was the only decision the BBC could make. 

It faces growing hostility on several fronts: the challenge posed by the changing habits of viewers and listeners, the growth of deep-pocketed international competitors from Netflix to Spotify, and unprecedented daily criticism of its output from politicians and others keen to escape journalistic scrutiny. 

Without the cash to produce global hits such as Line of Duty and Fleabag, the BBC would gradually shrivel into an underfunded public broadcaster like PBS in America, regularly forced into humiliating televised pledge drives to keep the lights on. 

This decision may secure the BBC’s medium-term future at roughly its current size, but bigger generational threats remain. 

Younger people spend much less time with the BBC then their parents do.  Getting them to swap YouTube for the iPlayer is next big iceberg on the horizon.”

• Read the full story on the BBC News website