It's a more general effect where conservatives will cut budgets and mismanage government services and then, having done that will turn around and go "See, look!

It's a more general effect where conservatives will cut budgets and mismanage government services and then, having done that will turn around and go "See, look! I told you the public sector can't do this!". And in my opinion, you're kind of falling for it. Is it true that the BBC has not evolved its business model? Well yes and no. Yes it's true that the BBC has largely failed to find new forms of revenue. That's directly because the royal charter prevents it from doing so. Is it true that the license fee is a weird tax that is badly enforced. Absolutely, but again, it's not the BBC's choice how the license fee is set up. It's the governments choice, and rather than fix the problems, the government has made them worse (through stealth budget cuts including forcing the BBC to cover the cost of free licenses for the elderly). The government could scrap the license fee tomorrow and fund the BBC out of general taxation, or remove the restrictions on the BBC monetizing its content, or remove the BBC's obligation to do a whole swathe of programming that is unprofitable but required by the royal charter. All of that is in the government's power to do. It continually chooses not to fix the problem and instead continually just bash the BBC for things that aren't within it's control. If you look at the things that the BBC is actually in control of though - the content it produces - it does a fantastic job.