BBC licence fee 'no longer fit for purpose' says expert
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The BBC has spoken out and defended its new logo design after it was reported the broadcaster spent ‘thousands of pounds’ on it. Critics have said the new version looks exactly the same as the old one but the BBC denies the cost being “significant”.
The Sun reported taxpayers money was used to design the BBC’s new logo and that the cost of it rang “into tens of thousands of pounds”.
The changes made to the three ‘BBC blocks’ are arguably minuscule.
On closer inspection, they include using a different, smaller front – their bespoke BBC Reith which was named after John Reith the founder of the BBC.
The trio of blocks are also slightly further apart in the new design.
The logo has been used for some time, having featured on the US streaming service, BBC Select back in February this year.
However, British viewers won’t see it on their television screens until autumn.
When contacted by the publication, a BBC spokesperson said: “We are simply using our own font – which we own the intellectual rights to – to tidy up the blocks when we update content or BBC products.
“It would be wrong to suggest that the costs of the design of the blocks was significant.”
Whether or not the design cost “thousands”, the new look has come under fire on social media.
“Come on BBC…. How much have you paid for this incredibly subtle logo redesign? You are wasting the license fee!” One tweeted.
Another wrote: “The #BBC Logo change is an absolute joke & waste of License payers cash! ‘Cost not significant’ ? How many pensioners Licenses could have been paid for instead? Hang your heads in shame! A corporation run by out of touch fools, with no grip on reality! @bbc @BBCOne @bbcpress.”
“I’d [have done] that for them and it would have cost them a KitKat,” someone else joked.
This is not the first time the BBC has been criticised because BBC Bitesize, the BBC’s education arm had to remove references to the “positive effects of climate change” from its website.
The BBC also backtracked after Radio Four’s Twitter account ‘liked’ a tweet that described Princess Diana’s recently unveiled statue as “hideous”.
BBC News presenter Huw Edwards also had to apologise recently when a newsreader accidentally mentioned Bill Clinton in a story about Bill Cosby.
It comes after the BBC’s free licence fee for over-75s ends at the end of this month.
They reported 260,000 pensioners are still yet to pay for a licence with 3.6million of the people over 75 have done so already.
Silver Voices, which has campaigned against the end of free TV licences, said “a significant hard core remains of over-75s who are refusing or unable to pay”.
The organisation’s Director Dennis Reed added: “Is the BBC going to fine and potentially take to court hundreds of thousands of senior citizens who are standing out against the scrapping of this welfare benefit?
“We have massive political and media support for a rethink on this issue and the government now needs to intervene urgently to force a solution.”
While the sum of money spent on the new logo remains a secret, perhaps some of it could’ve gone to those who are struggling to pay their licence fee?
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