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Week of December 19, 2016

Public broadcasters win another round, most folks are OK with license fee
Millennials not OK

Periodically, or as often as possible, haters of public broadcasting rail with enthusiasm at the possibility of killing the household license fee, the most common revenue stream for public broadcasting. Rarely does this get very far. In the UK, The BBC’s Royal Charter coming into effect next year was officially published last week.

The British public is quite OK with the BBC and the license fee, said a survey by Strategy Analytics, conducted last June while parliamentary debates were raging and released after the official publication. Seven out of ten survey respondents said the BBC is important to them and provides satisfactory services. Less than a third (29%) want the license fee scrapped. (See Strategy Analytics release here)

“Younger and lower income groups… tend to be most resistant to the idea of the licence fee,” said Strategy Analytics vice president and media technology analyst David Mercer, “so the BBC will be under pressure to increase its ratings with these audiences if it wishes to retain the licence fee in future Charter negotiations.” (See more about the BBC here)

Bowing to pressure from commercial broadcasters and the politicians who love them youth-oriented channel BBC 3 was removed from terrestrial distribution last February for a new life online. This appears to have contributed to an overall drop in Millennials (18 to 34 year olds) viewing BBC channels, reported Business Insider (December 5).

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