Speeches by Kane.

“One last question from me on this. I notice that the NAO Report talks about how you are exploring different ways of engaging with customers, including targeting areas with low rates of licensing. Can I get an assurance that you will not move to almost a two-tier system of targeting people? I imagine that there will be …”

“You are moving into a world that is digitally based. As you said, there were the days of everyone sitting around watching EastEnders, but we are moving towards individuals watching, so you are moving to a world that will be based around the viewer. I am intrigued as to why you cannot already get a sense of that.”

“I get that, Mr Davie. What I am hearing is that it is not yet part of your arsenal of licence-evasion tools. It seems that you are not exploiting the digital information, even if it is just to help you to target the visits and the letters.”

“But you know who is watching on iPlayer, so you are already capturing information. If someone is watching iPlayer, do you know whether they have a licence, given that they have logged in and provided you with information on who they are?”

“It all seems very analogue: telephone calls, letters through the post and visits to the house. Can you talk about how technology might help? If I go on to BBC iPlayer, I have to log in; are you capturing that information? You will know more about who is using the digital channels than who is using terrestrial broadcast…”

“Can you give us some examples of how you are engaging with viewers to encourage households to buy a licence?”

“Giving us sight of these targets would be useful. If they are internal, it is difficult for us to evaluate how you are evaluating things. Perhaps you could write to us and give us some information on what the targets look like so that we can evaluate what you are evaluating. I forgot to declare that I am a member of th…”

“Given the significance of the licence fee income, there do not seem to be many targets to reduce licence fee evasion. When I raised that view last week, you said that there are some internal targets that we may not be seeing. Can you expand on that?”

“I would like to talk about how you are judging success in the activities that you are doing. We started talking about this last week in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.”

“I think we will have you back on the World Service later, but thanks from me just now.”

“The 10-year model seems odd in one way. How much does the uncertainty about your funding from 2027 onwards impact your ability to set savings targets and make investment decisions?”

“My worry is more a load of people sitting in Glasgow or Edinburgh covering Stirling and Perth. That is my worry—that as you push things out from London you do not continue to push them out further.”

“This may be an unfair question to ask you at the very end of the session, because we could be here for a while, but I want to talk about your preparations for the charter review process. What are the opportunities and risks for the BBC from any change to the charter or the licence fee model?”

“Forgive me, but what will happen is that you are on a journey of moving to digital services, and as you are on that journey, there will be a significant handful of people, mainly in rural areas, who cannot access BBC Sounds or BBC iPlayer. I think BBC Sounds is fantastic—it offers a depth to audio that you just cannot …”

“But as you move to a digital future, if your timescale is out of kilter with broadband—”

“An existential part of the BBC is, “You give us £170 a year, and we will broadcast radio and television.” It has been that way for 100 years. You are now moving into a world in which there will be an additional cost of the broadband service itself. In a digital world, you now have my £170 licence fee, or whatever it wi…”

“If we are talking about the timescales, my constituency of Stirling and Strathallan is predominantly rural, and my mailbox is full of people complaining about the inability to get a digital service. For those who have broadband service, it ain’t of a level where they can do streaming. They can possibly send a slow emai…”

“We will move on now to the transition to online. One of the recommendations in the March 2023 PAC Report was: “The BBC should develop a detailed plan including scenarios for how it could switch to an internet-only future, working with government, audience representatives and wider stakeholders, to ensure no-one is left…”

“Yes, I actually agree with that, and I congratulate and applaud you on what you are doing. If I sound like I am being a bit too picky now, it is part of what the Committee is here to do. When you say that, what I sometimes hear is, “London, and then everywhere else.” We can create examples—you mentioned the north-east—…”

“I agree.”