Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has returned to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as Minister of State.
He will serve under new Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, who replaced Nicky Morgan this week.
Mr Whittingdale, the MP for Maldon in Essex, held the cabinet position himself from May 2015 to July 2016 and previously spent a decade as the Chair of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He was also the Shadow Culture Secretary 2002-2005 when the Conservatives were in opposition.
As Minister of State at DCMS, radio will be part of his portfolio of responsibilities. The role was previously held by Nigel Adams and other predecessors include Matt Hancock and Ed Vaizey.
Following John Whittingdale being appointed to DCMS I have read in the weekend papers that the government has the idea of scrapping the existing TV License Fee and thinning the BBC down.
While I am generally in favour of slimming down the BBC we need to remember that there are geographical parts of the UK and parts of our population that only watch TV on Freeview or Freesat and live in areas where the only radio stations they can receive are the BBC stations and perhaps one commercial and possibly a community radio station.
The BBC National Radio DAB Multiplex (11 stations) reaches 98% of the UK population, Digital 1 reaches 91% and SDL National reaches 83%. The five national FM services BBC Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 & Classic FM reach around 98%. So if you remove the 11 BBC national stations and hand them to only commercial operators then some of our population would receive a reduced choice of listening.
My answer is to replace the TV Licence with:
Basic BBC Broadcasting Fee for only BBC1, BBC2 & all BBC Radio at £60 (£5 per month) and subscription for other BBC TV Channels and BBC iPlayer etc.
J Peter Wilson
A pick and mix model doesn’t work. As a BBC viewer and listener, I watch both BBC 2 and 4, and listen to Radio 3, 4, and Scotland. why should I pay extra to use iPlayer? I have paid for those programmes I watch programmes live and via on-demand? The BBC model is a universal approach across genres and platforms. The BBC is extremely cost effective model. Even if you don’t watch some programs on BBC 3 or 4 other people do. Without the BBC fee, we would not have Radio 3 or the orchestras etc etc. I can not see the commercial alternatives trying to replicate Radio 4. Channel 4 tried and pulled out before they even launched. The BBC model works. the model informs, educates and entertains in many different ways, which the BBC up holds.
Yes the BBC isn’t perfect, however, the alternatives are far worse.
The BBC used to offer a wide choice of programmes when it had only BBC 1 & BBC 2. Existing programmes from online only BBC 3 & BBC 4 could be shown on the other two channels instead of repeats and all programmes would be available via catch-up/streaming for a Netflix-style fee.
ALL radio would be covered by the reduced Basic BBC Broadcasting Fee of £5 per month,
So you would still have a ‘universal service’ but not as many TV channels and all existing radio services including Radios 3 & 4.