[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chris

There is no logical progression in your argument.

None of the current commercial public service broadcasters operates a mixed free/pay model. Channel 4 has tried it in the past with Film 4 and more recently with their music channel. It didn’t work. ITV tried it when they took over OnDigital. It didn’t work.

Sky obvs does operate a mixed model, but they do not have PSB obligations and their free channels are designed mostly as showreels for their premium content, as you’ll know if you’ve ever sat through a commercial break on Pick.

You have asserted that subscriptions would solve the problems of licence fee dodging, and people feeling they’re paying for a service they don’t use (personally I don’t believe the last argument is true in 99% of cases, but that’s another issue). Subscriptions would solve the problem, at the expense of creating another one - that the BBC’s entire output is based on the assumption that they’re broadcasting to everyone.

Almost everything the BBC does would change overnight if it went behind a paywall and saw audiences for its biggest shows cut in half, or worse. Remaining free to air and supporting itself with advertising, on the other hand, would allow it to continue to do most of what it already does, and maintain audience figures at their current level - and command a premium no other broadcasters can offer. Can you imagine the price tag for a 30-second commercial in the middle of Eastenders?

The best thing from the BBC’s point of view is that the FTA model already operates at ITV, Channel 4 and Five, and even in the difficult commercial climate of the last decade it works. If faced with a choice between a subscription model requiring radical change to its practices and a free-to-air model under which things would stay largely the same, no sane executive is going to choose a paywall.

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