Why Should Pensioners Pay For Their TV Licence, Now That The BBC Has Ditched Their Favourite Shows?
It will take more than stars like Helen Mirren and Sir Terry Wogan to persuade the elderly to pay for the BBC – they’re not likely to be swayed by celebrities
26 Jan 2016
With its almost spooky gift for misjudging the public mood, the BBC is planning to draft in “silver celebrities” to front a campaign encouraging the over-75s to pay for their TV licences.
Stars such as Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Terry Wogan could be part of a push to recoup some of the £700 million annual bill for providing free licences to the elderly.
Will you tell them or shall I? Older viewers are the least likely to be swayed by celebrities.
Most of the over-75s – who vote Conservative – are fond of individual programmes like Countryfile and Great British Bake Off, but they do not care one jot for a BBC whose output has a distinctly Left-wing, metropolitan bias.
Sir Terry Wogan may be part of a campaign by the BBC to encourage the over-75s to pay their TV licenses. Photo: Getty
I think of those listeners to Radio 4’s Any Questions who tell me that they shout at the radio, or bugger their knees diving for the off switch, when, week after week, their views scarcely get a hearing for the baying of the Corbynite mob.
The pollsters got the general election wrong because they failed to take sufficient account of the opinions of older voters. The same is true of the BBC with knobs on. You cannot treat the settled ideas of senior citizens with disdain then try to call on an affection for the BBC which you have killed off with your lazy, institutional assumption that any right-thinking person must be Left wing.
If the BBC is serious about getting older viewers onside, here are a few suggestions:
Buy back TV cricket coverage
Several elderly chaps of my acquaintance have never quite recovered since the Beeb lost cricket to Channel 4 in 1998. They would be as happy to fork out for a BBC licence to watch a Test match as they are unhappy paying for a subscription to Sky.
The BBC lost cricket to channel 4 in 1998.
Stop disappearing female presenters when they enter the twilight zone of 55
John Humphrys is still presenting the Today programme, with incredible zest, at the age of 72; the great Sue MacGregor had to hang up her headphones at the age of 60.
Sue MacGregor.
As women live longer than men, why is their BBC shelf-life so much shorter?
Don’t waste your breath
Why should the over-75s give up their free licence to help out a BBC with a byzantine, bloated management structure and better pension pots than they’ve got?
Wealthy oldies might just forego their Winter Fuel Payment for a good cause, but subsidise the Beeb? No chance.
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