The Death of the Licence Fee Would be the Death of Radio

An important article here, given the current UK's threats to the licence fee. There are also comments but you have to click on the link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11694549/The-...

A further article on this topic:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/30/bbc-threat-success-market-i...

More on the current problems of BBC funding:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/07/cuts-bbc-threaten-tv-industry-pact-...

Another Guardian article on the BBC:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/07/bbc-attack-public-future-li...

Read your comment on The Guardian site and couldn't agree more. The BBC do get some things wrong (squandering millions on 'The Voice', springs to mind*) but the good vastly outweighs the bad. The current Conservative agenda appears to be death by a thousand cuts. The knock-on effect of this is going to be devastating to the arts in Britain.
*I do wish the BBC would stop chasing ratings but understand the current agenda makes it do so. They can't win - no viewers/listeners, no relevance; lots of viewers/listeners, either dumbing down or being the same as a commercial station.

I've made a number of comments on a number of these articles Jargoneer.

Yes, I agree with you, the BBC is a unique broadcaster and does things that you can nowhere else due to its public service orientation which still persists. The current government seems to be cleverly disguising its real intent to undermine public services of any kind by doing this indirectly and in a concealed way - so the BBC needs to pay for the free licence for the over 75's on top of previous cuts to the service. Incremental cuts are less noticeable - also happening in the NHS.

The current UK government is ideologically opposed to public services but is also in opposition with the BBC as an independent voice which tries to be neutral and has the responsibility of at least attempting to present all sides of a political argument. This is increasingly criticised as "left wing bias" in an ocean of Murdoch owned and increasingly right wing media. The path of dismantling the BBC is also the path of increasing the dominance and influence of an increasingly biased right wing media. Also, you are right to say that it will devastate the arts in this country: the BBC has a powerful influence in commissioning and therefore funding new writing, new music, also funding orchestras, and supporting the arts otherwise in numerous ways. Polly Toynbee is also correct in saying that the death of the licence fee will mean the death of quality radio, which will give way to numerous commercial stations broadcasting pop and regular phone-ins. If you want a service on the cheap this is what you get.

Another article today:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/14/battle-for-the-bbc

And these:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/19/bbc-unique-central-to-our-c...

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/jonathan-dimbleby-calls-public-defe...