The BBC licence fee was blasted as “ludicrous” and a “tax just to watch Strictly Come Dancing” after it emerged the Government had approved a plan to cut the planned annual rise by a third.
Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, said he “welcomed” the new deal, which will see the licence fee rise by £10, to £169.50 per year from April.
However, the fee itself has remained controversial, with many unhappy at being forced to pay a fee to use their televisions. Among the critics is TalkTV host Kevin O’Sullivan, who described the fee a “ludicrous anachronism”, and something other countries would refuse outright to do.
Speaking on the station this morning, Mr O’Sullivan said: “We are stuck with this £170-a-year to pay for your television, and I still think that the television license is an embarrassment.
“It’s a ludicrous anachronism tax on watching Strictly Come Dancing.”
His co-host Alex Phillips waded in by interjecting: “It’s a tax on being force-fed Gary Lineker.”
Mr O’Sullivan continued: “That’s right. Nowhere else in the world will send you to prison because you didn’t pay to watch your television set. It’s extraordinary. We have got to get rid of it. And the BBC doesn’t speak for people in this country anymore anyway.”
The decision to create a slight rise was delivered this week and comes at a difficult time for the broadcaster.
As well as being made to make cuts of around £500million-a-year to its services, the BBC has also had to content with the rise of streaming platforms, sparking a downturn in the TV industry.
Mr Davie said of the new proposals: “In the context of the broader market it is something we welcome because it allows us some certainty despite very significant challenges … in terms of making the budget meet.
“There is not a media organisation in the world, certainly a traditional so-called broadcast organisation, that doesn’t need to fundamentally look at its model and make sure [it is] in the right place.”
Earlier today, Express.co.uk told of the heartbreak of what can happen if people do not pay their TV licence, including the story of a partially blind woman who was prosecuted for the crime.
It led Sir John Hayes, a former minister and founder of the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs, to rage: “I suggest she and all those pensioners who are cruelly pursued, regardless of their circumstances, send bills equivalent to their fines to multi-millionaire, BBC-funded Gary Lineker.”
The controversy surrounded a 62-year-old disabled woman who was prosecuted via the Single Justice Service (SJS) over an unpaid TV Licence and told to pay a £56 fine.
The woman, who also has memory problems after a brain haemorrhage, was prosecuted using the SJS, which, according to the Government, “allows magistrates’ courts to deal with minor offences in a way that’s quicker, more straightforward and more efficient, while still being fair, transparent and rigorous”.
