THE new head of BBC Scotland has ruled out introducing a Netflix-style subscription option for iPlayer instead of only giving access to licence fee payers – saying that would “exclude” people.
Hayley Valentine, who took over as the director of the channel in October, told Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee that moving to a subscription model like US streaming giants would undermine the BBC’s commitment to “universality”.
Labour MP Lillian Jones suggested that the BBC instead of only allowing those with a TV licence to watch iPlayer, the broadcaster might consider the model of subscription-based streaming companies.
The Kilmarnock MP expressed concerns that some viewers might struggle with the current set up.
Later in the committee session, BBC Scotland commissioning boss Louise Thornton described iPlayer as the “future” for the corporation as she defended dwindling viewer numbers for “linear” TV, where the audience tunes in live.
Valentine backed comments previously made by BBC chair Samir Shah, who told a Lords committee last year that neither a subscriptions model nor introducing advertisements would work for the broadcaster.
She said: “We need our service to feel universal and if we have subscription services then it excludes people who can’t potentially afford, the disenfranchised, the less well-off.”
The new BBC Scotland boss said that the corporation was “all about” giving audiences the “choice” of where and when they watched shows but added: “Anything along that subscription model doesn’t fit in with our universal value of the universality piece.”
Valentine also defended the decision to cancel the Nine, of which she was editor at its launch in 2019, saying it had freed up money for a new news programme at seven o’clock, a new podcast with Sunday Show host Martin Geissler and online news.
She also said that BBC Scotland had pioneered “impartiality champions,” who were members of broadcast teams with the authority to raise concerns about potential bias – a model which has since been rolled out across the corporation.
