The BBC would have to slash programmes to pay the £1bn cost of maintaining traditional TV broadcasts for a dwindling number of viewers, the corporation has warned.
Blocking plans to move to internet-only TV in the next decade, as the majority of viewers shift to streaming platforms like Netflix, would load extra costs on to the licence fee, insiders said.
UK broadcasters are asking the Government to set a date to switch off Digital Terrestrial Television (or Freeview) signals by the mid 2030s.
They estimate that just 330,000 households would be left needing support to move to internet-only viewing and pledge that no household will be left behind by the “TV switch-off”.
However campaigners say the move could still cause thousands of people in isolated or rural locations to lose TV and force older viewers and those on fixed incomes to subscribe to expensive broadband plans.
Now the BBC has warned that millions of viewers could lose out if the switch-off plan is thwarted.
An industry insider said: “It will cost the BBC and other public service broadcasters £1bn to pay to keep the TV aerials going to 2045. That is money that would have to come out of programme budgets.”
The person added: “We are competing with Netflix but Netflix isn’t paying to maintain a network of 1,000 transmitter masts which are increasingly going to transmit to a dwindling audience. It’s far better to help over the line the small number of people that will need assistance to switch over.”
In its response to the Government’s Green Paper on a new BBC charter, the corporation said that “the BBC needs to be universally available in ways that provide good value for money for the licence fee payer”.
It called Arqiva, the company which owns and operates the UK’s TV mast network, the “monopoly supplier of broadcast infrastructure”.
The BBC warned in the submission: “As audiences move away from broadcast services, these assets need managing without excessive charges being passed on to customers. Without regulatory reform, there is a risk that the costs of maintaining these services will increasingly fall on the licence fee payer.”
This would mean less money for programmes, a BBC source confirmed.
The BBC is hoping to reduce the £197m it spent on programme distribution costs in 2024-25, according to its last annual report.
But one broadcasting consultant said: “It sounds like the BBC is giving up on getting a 2035 switch-off. DTT is still value for money. It delivers 46 per cent of TV viewing right now, it’s the only way to guarantee universal coverage and it does that without excessive new costs.”
An Arqiva spokesperson said: “Talk of a switch‑off date within eight years is oversimplifying a complex national infrastructure question. The real issue is not setting a calendar, but whether the conditions are genuinely in place for audiences, public services and the country as a whole.”
Arqiva is seeking a “blended” solution with DTT continuing to exist alongside streaming-based distribution in many homes.
The BBC wants ministers to set a date to switch-off digital TV signals which are being used by fewer viewers in the streaming era (Getty)A petition calling on ministers to abandon switch-off, signed by 143,000 people, was handed in to Downing Street this month.
Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group for older people, said: “If this goes through, millions of older people will either be forced to buy an expensive broadband contract or basically not watch television at all.”
Reed warned that with 17 million homes still connected to Freeview, “removing the choice of those people from watching Freeview is something which is really going to harm them (the Government) politically.”
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport will set out the results of a review into the future of DTT later this year. Media minister Ian Murray said his department is “working closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to ensure that all aspects of digital inclusion are considered as part of any decisions we make on the future of digital terrestrial television.”
The BBC declined to expand on its Green Paper submission.
New BBC Director-General Matt Brittin has yet to indicate whether he wants the Government to press ahead with axing traditional broadcasts.
A review into switch-off by media analyst Matthew Horsman found that a “meaningful number of households will continue to use DTT as their primary means of receiving broadcast and linear TV services on their main sets in 2034 (around 5.4 million households) and even as late as 2045 (2.9 million households); this includes households with connected TVs being used for non-broadcast consumption (e.g., iPlayer, Netflix).”
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