{"id":202576,"date":"2020-02-17T08:40:47","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T08:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=202576"},"modified":"2020-02-20T07:10:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T07:10:08","slug":"boris-johnson-vows-to-scrap-bbc-licence-fee-and-move-to-a-subscription-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=202576","title":{"rendered":"Boris Johnson to scrap BBC licence fee and move to a subscription service"},"content":{"rendered":"
-> Senior source said BBC could be forced to sell off most of its radio stations
\n-> Said there would be consultation on replacing licence fee with subscriptions
\n-> Suggestion that number of BBC television channels could also be reduced<\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Rory Tingle \u2013 The Daily Mail Feb 16, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

BBC headquarters London. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Downing Street has signalled a new onslaught on the BBC<\/strong><\/a><\/span> – with a threat to scrap the television licence fee and turn it into a subscription service.<\/span><\/p>\n

A senior source said the broadcaster could be forced to sell off most of its radio stations in a ‘massive pruning back’ of its activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The source told The Sunday Times<\/span><\/strong><\/a> that Prime Minister Boris Johnson<\/span><\/strong><\/a> was ‘really strident’ on the need for serious reform.<\/span><\/p>\n

They said there would be a consultation on replacing the licence fee with a subscription model, adding: ‘We will whack it.’<\/span><\/p>\n

The paper said that the number of BBC television channels could also be reduced, the website scaled back and stars banned from cashing in on well-paid second jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The attack will be seen as a further escalation of the hostilities between No 10 and the corporation, with many Tories still angry at its coverage of last year’s general election.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Government is already consulting on proposals to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee, and ministers have suggested it could be abolished altogether when the BBC’s charter comes up for renewal in 2027.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was reported that the review will be led by former culture secretary John Whittingdale, who was reappointed to his old department in last week’s reshuffle.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times quoted one source as saying: ‘We are not bluffing on the licence fee. We are having a consultation and we will whack it. It has got to be a subscription model.<\/span><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnson will harvest much support from this, as there is widespread resentment over the BBC\u2019s perceived bias and its mandatory licence fee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":134005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202576"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202618,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202576\/revisions\/202618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/134005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}