I think I’ve written here before about how passionately I support the BBC. One of the things I was considering writing about today was last night’s episode of Planet Earth Three. To have such magnificent, beautiful television programmes on our screens, presented by the incredible Sir David Attenborough – himself a national treasure – is something to be grateful for. Yet we only have such wonderful television, commercial free and accessible to all, because of how the beeb is funded. Thanks to the license fee, everyone contributes what they can to our national broadcaster, and we all have access to the finest world class news and entertainment. In many respects I think it’s as culturally valuable as the NHS, and both organisations deserve our support.

That’s why I was appalled to hear this morning that the Tories want to effectively cut the license fee. “An increase to the BBC licence fee by almost £15 would “absolutely” be too much, the culture secretary has said. Lucy Frazer said she was concerned a “significant rise” in the fee would add to cost of living pressures.” Of course, they’re justifying it with stuff about the cost of living, but we all know that the tories hate the BBC: they despise the notion of everyone getting equal access to a public service, irrespective of their ability to pay for it; they also clearly resent being held to account by that broadcaster, trying to dismiss it as too left wing whenever the beeb calls them out on their neoliberal schemes. The Tories will thus do whatever they can, however covertly, to weaken the BBC, ultimately wanting to destroy it altogether.

Of course, there’s no denying that the media landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years. We’ve seen a massive rise in online streaming services, both payed for and free, and with it has come a massive diversification of televisual media. For one, we have all started to consume film in shorter snippets. Corporations have naturally needed to respond to that change. Yet that does not mean that well established public broadcasters like the BBC don’t need funding or maintaining. In fact the more diverse and varied the mediascape gets, the more we need the BBC as a sort of backbone or base standard which we can all fall back on. At least we know we can trust the beeb, no matter how crazy the rest of the mediascape gets. To it’s great credit, the BBC’s Iplayer is one of the best streaming services on the web.

Yet services like the Iplayer are only possible if the BBC is funded properly through the license fee, otherwise it risks becoming just another source of derivative commercial dross. Without the license fee, the entire raisin d’etre of the beeb would shift from entertaining, educating and informing to making money and forcing products upon viewers. It would just become another ITV, and the wondrous natural history documentaries of David Attenborough would be replaced by the repulsive spectacle of failed politicians eating zark knows what in fake jungles. The Beeb thus needs defending against these Tory attempts to destroy it. It is only as valuable as it is because of how the BBC is funded, but unfortunately that funding paradigm goes against everything the Tories stand for.