Will the Government put the BBC’s website behind a paywall?

That’s the question I’ve found myself asking (myself) lately.

In the past month the Government has predictably been ratcheting up the pressure on the BBC. The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP, has made a number of public statements which indicate a flavour of things to come.

One of the most interesting was quoted in a Guardian article on the topic; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/25/bbc-website-jeremy-hunt

In this article Hunt is quoted as saying of the licence fee; "The way we collect it may have to be rethought, because technology is changing, a lot of people are watching TV on their PCs. "We're not going to introduce a PC licence fee and that is something that I do need to have discussions with the BBC to see what their ideas are."

All very innocuous on the face of it. But there’s plenty of room for manoeuvre here for Hunt and there’s a few possibilities of where this will lead.

One has to read between the lines to see at what point Hunt and the Conservatives are going to look to pay back the debts they owe to Murdoch for his media’s favourable coverage in the run up to the elections.

Let’s think for a moment of the possible ways the BBC could start charging for its website content…….. done? That’s right, there aren’t many.

One possibility is to monetarise the website, as hapless bloggers like myself so often try to, by putting adverts up. That’s never going to happen though, because this is, after all, the BBC.

They could fund it using some form of e-licence, but Hunt has ruled that out. The final option? They make it a subscription service. What’s another word for subscription doing the rounds on the internet these days; voila, a paywall.

And who else has recently introduced a paywall to a leading British news website? Rupert Murdoch of course, with the Times. And what has Rupert Murdoch been hoping for ever since he first started looking at the idea of sticking news websites behind paywalls? He’s been hoping for other media organisations to follow suit.

Here’s a nice video of an interview with Murdoch on the issue of paywalls; http://fora.tv/2010/02/05/Rupert_Murdoch_The_Future_of_Newspapers#fullprogram

Right at the start of the section dealing with paywalls the interviewer quotes Murdoch; “Rupert Murdoch in his December testimony to the Federal Trade Commission; ‘We need to do a better job of persuading consumers that high quality, reliable news content does not come free’”

Ask yourself this; as one of the most recognisable organisations in the world, with a reputation for providing high quality, reliable news, doesn’t the existence of the free BBC news website stand smack bang in the way of Murdoch, or anyone for that matter, developing a paywall system? How can you convince consumers that high quality, reliable news content doesn’t come free when the biggest provider in the world is still not charging?

The timing here is perfect.

News Corp, and its subsidiaries such as the Times, can more than survive for a while irrespective of the number of paid up members. This is a huge organisation, with a lot of reserves and a lot of capital.

It will take the Government a while to win the argument about sticking the BBC behind a paywall, but with comments like those coming from Hunt, it’s on the horizon.

News Corp and the Times could suffer with low-users in the meantime, but once the BBC website goes subscription only, the paywall would have arrived on the global scene.

That would mark a sad day.

The cost of the information is one issue, driving those on lower incomes out of the high-quality news market and increasing their information poverty. Another, more frightening issue, would be that this would mark a slippery slope towards regulation of a far more regimented online world.

News Corp and many governing bodies around the globe see the freedom of the online world, both in a monetary and liberal sense, as a barrier to their desires; for the business, a desire to monopolise an unruly market, for governments sceptical of what might foment in an entirely free ‘anarchical’ online world, as a threat to law and order.

One only hopes there are enough sane heads in the green seats of Parliament to ensure that the BBC news website stays free. It is a force for good in this world above money, and the more Murdoch, his sons and his pals criticise it, the more it should be lauded.