Full story here. Gibson writes in part:

‘The BBC is facing an uphill battle to maintain support for the licence fee, according to a new survey that shows almost half the population do not find it value for money.

A new Ipsos Mori poll for MediaGuardian also shows that the further north you live, the less likely you are to feel that the licence fee is an appropriate way of funding the BBC. The same is true of those in lower socioeconomic groups.’

My take: It’s pretty obvious to many people — there’s no huge reason why people should show special allegiance to the programming of a massive state-owned corporation above what else is on offer, both on TV, but also on other sorts of screens and devices. Asking those people to pay a compulsory annual tax whether they like it or not is going to please some of them, and annoy others.

This research contradicts research conducted by both Ofcom and the BBC. At least in part. What does that mean? I’m not sure. I do think that much of the research conducted by Ofcom and the BBC is strongly framed by normative values (the Beeb’s charter and Ofcom’s statutory mission). So, it is hardly surprising that a regulatory organisation charged with maintaining and strengthening public service broadcasting will tend to uncover evidence that people like it and want to pay (and pay more) for it.

All we know is that somewhere between 0 and 100 percent of the population support the licence fee as is. The vast bulk of us are probably somewhere in the middle. We support some aspect of the licence fee to ensure that there is support for cultural programming of the market-shunned type, and support for programming of the national cohesion type. But people are so diverse in opinion and habits that it strains credulity that a majority of people like to pay the full licence fee and support the full BBC mission as manifested in its services and products.

I personally think that Ofcom are on the wrong side of history here. Ofcom really should be thinking of ways to reduce state intervention in UK media markets.* I’ve advocated at least one: privatisation of channel 4. There are others that involve the BBC, but the DCMS had its say in 2006 and many of those options are off the table for now.

*Someone pointed out to me that the Federation of Entertainment Unions (FEU) called for investment quotas. Now that is a spectacularly bad idea, but the FEU made a really good point in its submission to the PSB review. The FEU pointed out that Ofcom’s consultation document really just presents a narrow range of options for consultation. Other points of view can be submitted of course, but Ofcom’s research efforts will generally only track the options supported by Ofcom. So, just like investment quotas, the option of privatising Channel 4 was not researched in any way by Ofcom.

Thus, policy makers really have an incomplete view of the options before them. Ofcom filtered-out options that — in its opinion — were either too interventionist or too laissez faire.