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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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There does seem to be an assumption that many people make that just because things are as they are now, that is evidence that it cannot be changed. Having seen all the big changes that have happened to TV over the last 20 years, this appears to me to be an incredible frame of mind to hold.
On demand viewing seemed to come out of nowhere when cable went digital. Maybe I was asleep at the time, but that took me by surprise - I just discovered. it on the menu when we switched over from analogue.
Just a few short years ago, who would have thought we would ever get a service like Netflix on our TVs? What is more, to have the content available on our boxes, integrated in such a way that we can bookmark its content to appear on 'My Shows'?
You say that none of our public service broadcasters currently operate a mixed model, but that is incorrect. ITV Hub + gives just that choice.
http://www.itv.com/help/itv-hub
As you know, the BBC is looking at creating a website with content from their own channels as well as ITV and Channel 4. If Ofcom allow this to get off the ground, and they have already admitted they got it wrong when they prevented Project Kangaroo from seeing the light of day, then there is no reason why this should not be successful. I would imagine that this project will enable free viewing with ads or uninterrupted viewing with a subscription. There is no reason why such a venture would not succeed.
The BBC's entire output is certainly not based on the assumption they are broadcasting to everyone as you say. It is based on the principle that everyone who meets the all encompassing criteria is charged. I agree that changing over to a voluntary subscription will lose them a relatively small number of viewers, but a premium subscription offer could take care of that.
You present the choices faced by the BBC either to go behind a paywall or a free to air model. What I am saying is that it could be both, and that would maximise viewership.