It’s been labelled a “crackpot” idea, but one which MPs and the creator of the hit TV show believe could solve the BBC’s funding crisis.
Plans for the broadcaster to charge an “international licence fee” for people around the globe to watch its shows have divided the television industry.
Supporters point to a paywall that has worked in the US. They believe a fully-fledged global subscription platform could top up the corporation’s depleted coffers and potentially lower the UK licence fee.
But critics say there is little chance of forcing people in Brazil to pay a “busted flush” licence fee charge that the broadcaster is already struggling to enforce in Bradford.
New rights for drivers to challenge ‘rip-off’ parking fines
Andy Burnham has announced a new set of rules to protect drivers from unfair parking charges, giving them the right to appeal fines they receive as a result of “honest mistakes” or certain acceptable excuses.
What do the new rules cover?
Grace period
Drivers will get 5 minutes to buy a ticket on arrival and 10 minutes to leave.
Honest mistakes
Time to check directions once in the car.
Extraordinary situations
Problems outside a driver’s control such as a breakdown or medical emergency.
3 min read
How will the rules work?
- Drivers will still be fined but will have the right to appeal.
- Not displaying the permit or mistyping your number-plate will see the fine reduced to £20.
2 min read
What is not changing?
- The code comes into force on 21 December.
- Most parking firms were already following these rules as set by their trade bodies, but they can now be legally enforced.
- There was already a cap of £100 on fines, which remains in place.
- Fees for late payment are still capped at £70, though the Government has promised a consultation on the charge.
How AI tool can predict cancer survival by patient selfie
An AI tool developed by doctors can predict a cancer patient’s chance of survival by scanning a single picture of their face, new research has found.
What does the research show?
Researchers at academic health centre Mass General Brigham in Boston, Massachusetts, trained the AI tool on more than 40 million images of cancer patients. The scanner estimates a person’s biological age (how old they look rather than their chronological age) and predicts their chances of survival from cancer.
4 min read
How does the technology work?
The system relies on two tools which scan different parts of the face for clues, one looking at the area below the eyes and the other focussed on the creases around the mouth, forehead and temples.
The people who looked five or more years older than their actual age had a 21 per cent higher risk of dying during the average four-year follow-up than the rest of the group. The patients who looked five or more years younger had a 17 per cent lower risk.
Results could guide treatment plans
As the population ages, physicians need better ways to estimate physical reserve and frailty before recommending intensive treatments such as radiation, surgery or systemic therapy…[The technology] can support personalised treatment decisions.
Dr Raymond Mak, radiation oncologist at Mass General Brigham
More health from The i Paper
The poll that shows how Badenoch bounce is punishing Reform
Kemi Badenoch‘s rising popularity has pushed the Conservative Party ahead of Reform UK to being seen publicly as the main opposition party to Labour for the first time this Parliament, a new poll has found.
What did the poll find?
Of the 2,200 surveyed by pollster Ipsos…
35%
said they view the Conservatives as the main opposition party.
This put them three points ahead of reform on…
32%
Reform was the party in second place for most of the summer, at around three points behind Labour.
Party conference push
Ipsos conducted the poll from 9-13 October after the Tory party’s conference in Birmingham, suggesting Badenoch’s speech went down well. She promised to scrap inheritance tax on family homes, a £10bn air and missile defence system and 50,000 new prison places. The Tories could also be benefitting from the racism and sexism scandal dogging Nigel Farage’s Reform.
3 min read
A temporary bounce?
Meanwhile, in the battle for hearts and minds on the right, the Conservatives continue to make progress. Time will tell if this leads to a decisive shift in voter preferences in their direction or if this is merely a low ebb for Reform UK that they recover from.
Keiran Pedley, UK Director of Politics at Ipsos
Badenoch attacks Reform UK
How a ‘global licence fee’ could work
Exporting the 100 year-old licence fee was proposed by MPs on the influential Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee.
The idea was submitted to the Government’s BBC Charter review, which will set out a new funding mechanism to put the corporation on a “sustainable” financial footing.
MPs said the broadcaster should “explore the opportunity for developing an international TV licence so that it can maximise the potential global audience and increase its revenue”.
The number of UK licence fee payers plummeted by 500,000 last year, with evasion and cancellations costing the corporation an estimated £1bn.
But charging international viewers for access to drama, natural history blockbusters and news, as well as classics from its archive, would be a lucrative moneyspinner say supporters, including Steven Knight, the creator.
The MPs cited evidence from Knight, who is writing the script for the new James Bond movie.
“Could you buy a BBC television licence if you are living in the United States – just be given a code (for iPlayer) to say that you have paid an amount of money, just as you do with a streamer?” Knight asked. “It is not an alien concept: you pay a certain amount of money, you get a passcode – a number.”
If the take-up was significant, it could even help lower the £180 a-year charge for UK licence-fee payers.
Global licence fee payers could get access to new series like Sir David Attenborough’s and classic comedies from the back catalogue such as , Knight suggested.
“Maybe that would be in demand. And not just America, either; I am talking about around the world— you have your BBC citizenship, you pay an amount of money, whatever amount that is, and that gives you access to the archive.”
Trump lawsuit ‘boosts US subscription’
The broadcaster is already taking a step in this direction by charging users of its app in the US to access a selection of its documentaries and films ad-free.
For $8.99 a month, subscribers also receive unlimited access to its global news and reporting, including a 24/7 livestream of the News channel.
But US visitors to BBC.com who don’t pay can still get limited access to news stories and listen free to the World Service online.
Insiders say its offer to US audiences of “news they can trust at a time of dramatic global uncertainty” has been boosted by President Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the corporation over the editing of a episode.
The BBC has apologised for editing comments which made it appear that Trump incited violent insurrection on 6 January 2021. But it is vigorously contesting the action and has asked a judge to force the President to sit for an in-person deposition.
“Asserting its independence as a news brand and refusing to be intimidated by Trump, unlike some US networks, is doing the BBC the world of good in America,” said one News insider.
They added it has raised the corporation’s profile “against [news] competitors like CNN”.
The broadcaster declined to share subscription numbers for its US app. But a relaunched BBC.com has recorded double-digit growth in the past year, reaching 139m visitors globally including 60m in the United States.
However, critics say there is little chance of forcing people across the world to pay. Licence fee evasion in the UK rose to 12 per cent last year.
Jimmy Mulville, co-founder of Hat Trick, the company behind Have I Got News For You, said: “Good luck with that. People are watching the BBC illegally anyway. That’s a crackpot idea.”
Speaking on the podcast, Peter Fincham, former boss of ITV and BBC One, imagined “people who watch the BBC getting a knock on your door, they say ‘You may not have heard of this thing called the licence fee but we’d love you to contribute to it. Can you give us 50 of whatever the currency is in Guatemala so we can go on doing it? If you don’t, we might knock on your door again’.”
Director-General Matt Brittin is also a sceptic, suggesting that “the complex rights issues around the content and its ownership” could prove an obstacle to an international licence.
Another issue is that production companies which make shows for the public broadcaster retain the Intellectual Property to those programmes. This allows the companies to profit from secondary rights sales to other countries and broadcasters.
However, it means the UK version of , for instance, could not be included in a global TV licence without cutting a deal with the show’s owners, Banijay Entertainment.
David Elstein, the TV executive who launched Channel 5 and a former government adviser on the BBC’s future funding, told The i Paper: “Matt Brittin is right. The BBC could switch to subscription in the UK without much difficulty, but selling the same package overseas would require a significant and possibly expensive renegotiation of trade terms with independent producers.”
There would have to be a “renegotiation and potential loss of revenue from sales of the BBC’s wholly-owned programmes abroad”.
However, Dr Samir Shah, the BBC Chair, has said the corporation wanted to revisit the issue of rights with a view to changing the “balance of who owns the rights of content”.
This would allow “people outside Britain can pay for it”, he added.
UK subscription could test global licence
Elstein said the measures needed to put in place a global TV licence were “all doable, but it might take a few years”.
He recommended that the corporation test a subscription mechanism, putting some of its most popular shows behind a paywall.
“Probably best to start in the UK and see how popular the package(s) turn out to be,” he added.
But the corporation is opposed to a subscription service replacing the licence fee in the UK. It would force the broadcaster to drop public service programming and focus on commercial shows to retain paying viewers.
Last week, the News channel was also made available to stream live for free on YouTube for viewers in the UK and US, potentially negating a key selling point for its US paywall.
The BBC was approached for comment.