The left-wing UK government is reportedly planning to introduce an internet tax to prop up the financially struggling BBC public broadcaster.
Currently, everyone who watches broadcast television in Britain must pay the government an £180 ($239) annual licence fee, whether they watch the BBC or not. The fee was originally used to fund the BBC’s radio broadcasts, but was later expanded to incorporate TV following the Second World War. Now, amid the rise of streaming services, the left-wing Labour Party government is said to be planning on extending the effective tax to the internet.
According to The Independent, which cited a Whitehall source, plans to change the BBC’s charter will be made public before Christmas, with the present agreement set to expire in December of next year.
The source said the so-called “YouTube tax” will be imposed on internet-based video platforms to stop people from avoiding the television licence fee by watching content on computers, phones, or tablets. This comes as about two million people have stopped paying the BBC television licence fee over the past five years, and 539,000 over the past year, up to April.
If the government imposed an internet fee, an estimated three to four million more people would likely be on the hook to fund the BBC. Yet this would still likely be insufficient to meet the broadcaster’s budget shortfalls.
Nevertheless, the civil service source told the Independent that the additional money could be spent countering “conspiracy theories and fake news” that they claimed helped Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party rise in working-class regions of Britain.
This negative attitude by the civil service and the BBC towards Reform may reflect the party’s vow to abolish the BBC licence fee altogether and force the broadcaster to compete on an even footing with private media.
Although the BBC’s charter mandates that it provide the public with bias-free news coverage, it has long faced accusations of skewing its coverage against the populist right and, indeed, the socialist left.
This was particularly true during the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union, when a report from the News Watch think tank found that BBC Radio 4’s coverage showed clear bias.
“There were no attempts in any programme to explore the benefits of leaving the EU, but conversely, Brexit came under sustained negative attack,” the report found.
Another report from Civitas found that in the decade leading up to the referendum, only three per cent of guests on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme were pro-Brexit. The report also noted that the public broadcaster often failed to platform pro-Brexit voices from the left, giving the public the impression that the issue was only a priority for the right.
Meanwhile, a study commissioned earlier this year by the head of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Lisa Nandy, found that 70 per cent of Britons believe the BBC is out of step with modern British society and needs to change.
In addition to reportedly planning an internet tax to fund the broadcaster, BBC director-general Matt Brittain has suggested farming out BBC content to existing streaming services, rather than limiting it to BBC iPlayer.
A BBC spokesman said: “We have consistently argued that the current funding model is outdated and needs reform. We will continue to engage with government to secure a new charter that provides sustainable, sufficient and universal funding so the BBC can deliver for audiences for generations to come.”
A DCMS spokesman added: “The BBC must be funded by a model that is sustainable and fair to all those that are paying it. Through Charter Review, we are looking at a range of options, including how the licence fee could be reformed, but no final decisions have been made.”