What If There Were No BBC Television? The Net Impact on UK Viewers

The impact of the BBC on the UK television market will figure prominently in discussions of the BBC Charter Renewal and a number of critics have argued that its scale and scope should be reduced. This report is the first research study to measure the impact of the BBC on the market and project what the market would be without the BBC — a benchmark for understanding the effects of less extreme policy choices. The study shows that without the BBC, overall television market revenue would be lower and that total content investment would be 5–25% lower and investment in first-run UK content would be 25–50% lower, depending on whether optimistic or pessimistic assumptions are used. The report finds that most viewers would suffer a reduction in both choice and value for money without the BBC