SMF proposes £11 monthly levy to replace BBC licence fee

The Social Market Foundation has proposed replacing the BBC’s £180 annual television licence fee with an £11 monthly Home Internet Levy collected through broadband providers, as ministers consider options for the corporation’s future funding. The proposal would apply to every household with internet access, whether or not anyone watches live television, but it has not been adopted by the government. The levy is one of several funding models in an SMF report submitted for consideration during the government’s BBC Charter Review. Under the proposal, broadband providers would collect the charge. The report estimates that people who currently pay the full licence fee would pay about £132 a year under the levy, compared with £180 now. But the charge would also apply to households that do not currently pay the licence fee, so the stated saving does not describe the effect on every household. The SMF suggests that a social tariff could reduce costs for lower-income households, though the supplied information does not set out a final design or quantify how the levy would affect different groups.