The B.B.C. way with revenue

Press, 10 February 1981, Page 15

The B.B.C. way with revenue

The Director-General of the 8.8. C. (lan Trethowan) has confirmed that the corporation will be asking the Government, later this year for an increase in the licence fee to bring it to 50 pounds ($125), and that this will have to last for up to three years. On the subject of the way the licence fee is fixed, Sir lan reaffirmed his belief that an independent review body would probably be in the interests of the viewer. “You can never,” he asserted, “take the licence fee completely out of politics. But I believe it could be taken out qf the day-to-day traffic of concern about the economic policy if we could, whenever we wanted an increase in the licence fee, put it in front of an independent group who would look at our productivity, look at our plans impartially in the interest not of some transient party policy, but in the interests of the viewer and the listener.” He added that when the colour licence was introduced in 1968, it stood at 10 pounds, and that if this had risen at the same

rate the average person s earnings the current licence fee would be more than 54 pounds ($135).

The licence fee in New Zealand is $27.50 for black-and-white and $45.00 for colour.