It is absurd that viewers cannot watch ITV or Channel 4, or any of Sky's own channels, without paying a tax to the BBC and having to endure adverts (or pay the Sky subscription). It is not only absurd, it is inefficient.
Consider the class of viewers who only want to watch ITV and Channel 4, and consider the marginal consumer in this class. He only just regards:
(A) access to programmes
as preferable to:
(B) saving the licence fee and avoiding adverts.
If he did not have to pay the fee, this marginal consumer would be willing to endure more adverts. The consumers below him in keenness, who were not quite willing to endure fee-plus-ads, would now be willing to watch output with ads but no fee — which would imply a rise in possible charge per ad. Either way, the potential revenue of independent TV companies would increase, implying that these companies are currently operating at a suboptimal level of programming output.
The fact that viewers of commercial TV have to endure both adverts and a licence fee means independent TV companies are effectively subsidising the BBC.
Where it is readily possible to separate BBC viewing from non-BBC, as in online streaming, any BBC-related charge should be restricted to BBC viewing only. This should be done now, regardless of the ultimate future of the TV licence or its replacement. The fact that this may be inconsistent with the current charging system for traditional TV viewing seems irrelevant — the system as a whole is in any case scarcely coherent as it stands.
