Cross artform

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has said she is examining a "variety" of alternative sources for the funding of the BBC amid a review into the corporation’s funding arrangements.

Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she said that the licence fee "isn’t the only way” to fund the BBC.

“We are reviewing the licence fee. I’ve started that review,” she said. “We will be looking very closely at its funding arrangement. I do think it might need to look at a variety of sources for its funding.”

Under former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, the licence fee was frozen at £159 until April 2024. Dorries said she wanted to find a new funding model before 2027, when the current deal expires, calling the existing model “completely outdated”.  

Speaking separately on Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, Frazer also dismissed calls to remove political interference from the appointment of a new BBC Chair.

She said that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will appoint the “best candidate”, regardless of any political ties, to replace Richard Sharp.

Sharp recently resigned as Chair after failing to disclose that he had helped to secure former Prime Minister Boris Johnson an £800,000 loan.

Frazer spoke after opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer said that Labour would replace the government’s power to appoint the chair with an independent process.

“We will be looking for the best candidate,” Frazer said. “I strongly believe that we should not disqualify people from public office who put themselves forward, who are capable of doing the job, because they happen to have in the past supported a political party.”
 

The UK government has published a response to the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations on secondary ticketing, ruling out legislative changes for the time being. 

The CMA called for stronger laws to tackle illegal ticket reselling in August 2021, publishing a comprehensive report on the secondary market. 

The authority called for changes including a ban on platforms allowing resellers to sell more tickets than they are legally allowed to buy from the primary market, holding platforms accountable for incorrect information about tickets listed on their websites and a new licencing system for platforms that sell secondary tickets.

The UK government’s response, penned by MP Kevin Hollinrake, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State within the Department of Business and Trade, formally rejects the proposals.

“The government believes in the power of competitive markets to give consumers choice and flexibility,” Hollinrake’s response said. 

“This applies to both the primary and secondary markets in event tickets. Consumers should have the ability to sell on tickets they no longer want or able to use and therefore need a market for resale.”

The government response cited the “massive disruption” to the event industry caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as hindering a detailed assessment of the impact of current trading standards and CMA enforcement work.

It also stressed the responsibility of buyers to make careful decisions when purchasing tickets from the secondary market.

The response said that it is “too soon” to establish whether futher legislation focused on the secondary ticket market is “the only way forward”, concluding that “to propose further legislation in the sector at this stage is not yet appropriate or justified by the available evidence”.

It added that improvements to other aspects of consumer law, published in response to the 2021 consultation, would be the government’s priority in the immediate future, “rather than changes to the secondary ticketing regime specifically”.