In course of its charter review, the BBC is introducing a TV licence for the BBC iPlayer. The BBC is not the first public-service broadcaster who charges or is planning to charge their audience for using online catch-up services. Public-service broadcasters in Germany and Switzerland have already introduced this concept a while ago. According to a recent article in the Guardian, the BBC has lost over a 150m pounds annually by not charging for their online service. In the article Jasper Jackson, a Guardian journalist, mentions that nowadays a significant percentage of the BBC audience don’t use the broadcasters` services on the traditional channels (TV and radio), hence do not pay for the BBC´s services. “How will the BBC detect people watching iPlayer without a licence?”, is the question Jasper Jackson tries to answer in his article. In Germany citizens don’t pay a TV licence anymore, instead all citizens are charged a household excise tax. The difference between household excise tax and traditional TV licence is that the fee is instead of being linked to a certain public-service channel (TV or radio), the household excise tax is linked to the possibility of a household accessing PSB content and services.The Guardian: How woll the BBC detect people watching iPlayer without licence
The Guardien: BBC iPlayer users will have to pay TV licence fee from 1 September
