DGA research recommends end of BBC licence fee

According to research conducted by David Graham & Associates Consulting (DGA), regulators and policy makers have not yet understood how difficult it will be for free or licence-fee funded channels to continue providing special interest programmes, and have recommended the end of the licence fee in favour of subscription-based programming.
A DGA statement read: “Advertiser-funded channels will be desperately fighting to keep market share. Maximising audiences will be, for them, a more and more urgent necessity. Without a change of policy, the BBC will be driven the same way because it believes it cannot slip too far behind the largest commercial channel if it is to keep support for its licence fee.”
DGA believes that extending the licence fee in its present form will postpone a solution and could make the BBC’s position irrecoverable. Subscription would be a better way of funding programmes that meet more specialised tastes because individuals pay much more than advertisers for the programmes they really want to see.
DGA believes the right solution would be to put BBC entertainment on subscription in digital homes now and start to fund public service programmes directly. Doing this now will give the BBC the best possible chance of offering a subscription service at a price comparable with the licence fee.
These ideas were first developed in the report ‘Beyond the Charter’, published in February 2004.
(GB)