Posted in: BBC, streaming, TV | Tagged: bbc, doctor who

BBC: Don't Want to Pay the Licensing Fee? No iPlayer for You! (REPORT)

Though it's only an option for now, the BBC reportedly may consider blocking access to BBC iPlayer for those who don't pay the licensing fee.

While there was some good news regarding Doctor Who and its future from BBC Director General Matt Brittin earlier this month, the media company's annual report also red-flagged some serious, bigger-picture issues that could impact not just Doctor Who but a whole lot of other programming and services the BBC offers. In this case, we learned that the BBC took a big hit in the number of viewers paying its licensing fee, losing 539,000 payers last year (down to 23.3 million). In terms of income from the annual £180 ($240) fee, that actually increased by £36M to £3.9B, due in large part to the license fee rising with inflation. One option to remedy that was to have the streaming services that operate in the UK pick up a chunk of the licensing fee tab – a move that would most definitely receive pushback from Netflix, Prime Video, and others. Another option being considered is to block viewers who don't pay the licensing fee from accessing BBC iPlayer, the streaming service.

Though making it clear that the company wasn't looking to implement it anytime soon, BBC's chief customer officer Kerris Bright noted during an all-staff call earlier this week that the option is an "opportunity" to be considered down the road. Though required to sign in to the BBC to access the streaming service, it appears viewers aren't actually required to prove that they've paid the licensing fee – kinda like an "honor system" thing. In U.S. terms, it's like how Netflix and other streamers began putting some enforcement behind password/account sharing.

"[BBC] iPlayer is the only service really that's licensable where you could actually decide to put a gate in front of it, but the data today says that actually [there's] not really the return on investment for doing that," Bright shared with the staff, according to an audio recording obtained by Deadline Hollywood. "The vast majority of evasion is not on iPlayer. The vast majority of people that are watching iPlayer are people that are paying their TV licence, and so to put a gate in front of iPlayer, the data today says that you actually would make it a very difficult experience for people that are paying for the licence."

But as streaming technology improves, that option might be a much more realistic one, with Bright adding, "As we go into the future, more of an IPTV world, audiences changing behavior, new ways of creating experiences that maybe aren't so full of friction for audiences … that might absolutely be an opportunity for us, depending on the funding model. The data says today [that] absolutely [it] is not the silver bullet to generating more revenue. There's probably more cost in it than revenue, but it is something we should absolutely keep looking at because it might be something that you actually would want to do in the future."

"That's a show that has regenerated multiple times in its 60-plus year history, and we'll do so again," Brittin shared earlier this month regarding the future of the long-running series, coinciding with the release of the BBC's Annual Report. "I think that's one of the great things about the 100-year history of the BBC. We can do that, and we can creatively renew shows that people love, and we'll be working hard on that right now."

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