The BBC, bias, and what happens next with the licence fee

The Herald Scotland

28-04-2025

However, the bigger picture with shows like The Apprentice is that, even though they're still being made, the viewing figures are nowhere near what they were. Partly, it's because more people catch up on iPlayer, but even when that's taken into account, people just aren't watching terrestrial TV as much as they did. It was starting to change in 2010, but even so those shows were still a big shared experience for a lot of us. Not any more.
You'll know the reason if you have anyone under 30 in your life: they don't watch telly. A YouGov survey in 2022 found fewer than one in 20 of 18-30s watch live BBC on a daily basis and more than a third never watch it and I know this from my own experience: my god kids would no more think of watching a programme live on the BBC than they would think of putting a 33RPM on the gramophone. They're on their phones and their computers.
The BBC in particular knows this puts its future at risk which is why they've been particularly targeting the 18-30s. The writer Russell T Davies was recently brought back to Doctor Who to attract a younger audience and one of the ways he's tried to do it is by foregrounding progressive politics and messages. The problem is it hasn't built the bigger audience: the viewing figures have continued to fall and it matters because Doctor Who is a very expensive programme to make.
The other issue is that it's not just the young ones whose habits are changing. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and am very much a child of the BBC: Blue Peter taught me how to make things, John Craven told me what was happening in the world, Doctor Who made me scared and The Two Ronnies made me laugh; about 90% or more of my cultural life was the BBC and that continued into my forties. Other than newspapers, I got all my news from the Beeb.
But just like the youngsters, the phone has changed my habits. In the old days, I would stick on Radio 4 all day; now it's more likely to be a podcast. As the BBC has tried to attract a younger audience, the subject and tone of a lot of its programmes has also stopped appealing to me. What do I still watch? The Apprentice, as I said. Have I Got News For You. QI. And it's no coincidence that those shows are all more than 20 years old. On news, it's the same: my days used to start with Today on Radio 4 and end with Newsnight on BBC2; now I dip into various other places all day on my phone and computer instead. Whenever I do catch the TV news, it looks terribly old-fashioned and clunky.
The BBC has also suffered in the age of programmes and podcasts that are much more open about their views. You may remember Scottish nationalists gathering at the BBC in Glasgow to protest against what they saw as anti-SNP bias; Question Time also regularly attracts nationalist anger based on a suspicion the audience doesn't reflect the 'real' Scotland or is packed with unionists. What helps the BBC is that you're just as likely to find angry viewers who think it's too soft on nationalism. The bias is in the eye of the beholder.
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None of this is new of course: the BBC has always been accused of bias of one form or another. But it matters more now because viewers who are fed up can go elsewhere and find some sort of media that gives them what they want; media that aligns with their values to use that awful phrase. It reminds me of the woman I saw on Twitter complaining that she was so sick of right-wing bias in the BBC she was going to subscribe to The Morning Star. In other words, it wasn't objectivity she wanted, it was bias that was the same as hers.
What all of of these factors have done is they've created a pincer movement on the BBC and started to make it look very old-fashioned, and the BBC knows it, and the politicians know it. You may have seen the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy saying this week that the licence fee was unenforceable and no option was off the table on a possible replacement. 'We recognise there are problems with the licence fee,' she said. 'Fewer and fewer people are paying it.'
Ms Nandy's particular concern is that action to enforce the licence fee seems to disproportionately target women, particularly vulnerable women, and it's borne out by the figures and it's troubling. But increasingly, in the age of Netflix and other streaming sites, the whole idea that you must pay the licence fee and you might go to prison if you don't has started to look like something from a previous age because it is. Even in 2010, when I was writing reviews of I'm A Celebrity and Britain's Got Talent, it was starting to look unsustainable.
(Image: Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy)
Now 15 years on, the pressure is almost overwhelming. A number of my friends and family have told me they've stopped paying the licence fee, in some cases because they've got young kids who don't watch, in other cases because they prefer media that feels closer to their own worldview. And I must say it's crossed my mind as well: I've gone from someone who watched little else but the BBC to someone who watches hardly any of it, so why am I still paying?
These shifts are fundamental, and the point for the BBC is that they aren't going to turn around. Russell T Davies, who's a brilliant writer, is doing his best to get the 20somethings interested in Doctor Who but they've glanced up from their phones and said: nah. Older people have also embraced other media and are drifting away too. Ironically, the only part of the audience that's stayed loyal are the over-75s and a lot of them don't have to pay the licence fee.
So we know where this is heading, right? The previous Tory government grumbled about the licence fee but did nothing. Now the current government is muttering about no options being off the table. Meanwhile, viewing figures continue to fall, demographics continue to change, and the time that the licence fee has left continues to run out. Just for your information, I do still pay mine because, for now, I want to watch The Apprentice and Have I Got News for You and QI. But £174 for the privilege has started to feel like a lot, and I don't know how much longer it will go on. Will I stop paying the licence fee in the end? Yes, because we all will.