Recommendation 7

All of the other funding options have drawbacks. General taxation would risk the BBC’s independence. A levy on streaming services would be unlikely to raise sufficient revenue and could be counterproductive. Advertising would incentivise the BBC to focus more on commissioning commercial programmes and less on non-commercially viable content that is nevertheless valuable. It would also disrupt the business models of commercial public service broadcasters and radio. In addition, we believe there is a public appetite for media that does not carry advertising. Subscriptions would change the BBC into a very different media provider and a partial subscription model would inevitably lead to less investment in the public service genres that we want from the BBC, reduce the distinctiveness of the BBC brand and undermine universality. (Conclusion, Paragraph 63)