There are two points regarding the BBC competing with streaming that are something that could be solved easily, because it's to do with the mindset within the Beeb
Because even on a much lower budget, they're not even trying--most of the bigger, succesful streaming shows, especially Disney, are genre based, superhero, SF, fantasy, supernatural. The BBC still, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, thinks of that as kids stuff, and therefore we get Doctor Who and occasional attempts to replicate a "family" show
The idea that YA/teens/40+geeky adults might want to watch genre stuff aimed at them is culturally beyond them (yes, I am still bitter they cancelled The Fades for spurious reasons)
The other is costs--a lot of the cost of US big budget TV is case/crew, US shows famously overpay their stars by international standards, and that is dragging pay up in competing global sectors but...
The BBC can make similar shows, in a similar style, on a much smaller budget
The biggest problem is they don't, at all, want to try :-(
Most people don't believe the BBC is impartial, nor doing public sector journalism, and they don't trust it (see recent YouGov polls). I myself do not because I've caught the BBC lying in its news reports before, for example, by mis-representing what jobs people they're interviewing actually do. Fawkes has done a series of exposés showing that the BBC seems to often present people as neutral citizens or experts when they're actually Labour party activists, without noting that anywhere. And so on.
So, the majority of the public don't see it as some great public service anymore. For those people the BBC has negative value. It is a tax. Whilst it continues to coast for now on inertia, your opening is correct: if you proposed the BBC today people would think you were crazy because given historical experience it is obvious that a state funded broadcaster could not be competitive except in closed, protected markets. That is exactly what we see happening. Conclusion: the BBC should not exist anymore. Privatize it and let it be funded by the people whose ideologies it flatters. Given its failure to live up to its mandate, that would be a generous end.
I think you're right, but the biggest limitation on the BBC is that they can only seek revenue in one, medium-sized country.
If I was the BBC, I'd go to the government with an offer for the next charter renewal: In exchange for making the TV licence optional, let us make it a subscription service for iPlayer and sell those subscriptions outside the UK.
BBC could still make some content available for non-licence payers (the website has a huge audience and it makes sense to keep that), and broadcast would presumably theoretically require a licence for as long as it lasts before we all go streaming (though the enforcement would fade, unless they get Sky/Virgin to require a licence to subscribe to their broadcast systems). But the "tick a box to say you have a licence when you use iPlayer" could be replaced by a proper subscription service.
I'd bet the BBC would pick up more non-UK subscribers than it loses UK ones. Getting away from the endless different streaming technologies and separate subscription services (iPlayer, BritBox, BBC America, etc) would save some money on technology and also mean that more people are being served with a single system, making it easier to justify investing in it (ie making iPlayer better and catching it up with the other streaming services in technology terms).
I think, overall, you're right, but...
There are two points regarding the BBC competing with streaming that are something that could be solved easily, because it's to do with the mindset within the Beeb
Because even on a much lower budget, they're not even trying--most of the bigger, succesful streaming shows, especially Disney, are genre based, superhero, SF, fantasy, supernatural. The BBC still, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, thinks of that as kids stuff, and therefore we get Doctor Who and occasional attempts to replicate a "family" show
The idea that YA/teens/40+geeky adults might want to watch genre stuff aimed at them is culturally beyond them (yes, I am still bitter they cancelled The Fades for spurious reasons)
The other is costs--a lot of the cost of US big budget TV is case/crew, US shows famously overpay their stars by international standards, and that is dragging pay up in competing global sectors but...
The BBC can make similar shows, in a similar style, on a much smaller budget
The biggest problem is they don't, at all, want to try :-(
Most people don't believe the BBC is impartial, nor doing public sector journalism, and they don't trust it (see recent YouGov polls). I myself do not because I've caught the BBC lying in its news reports before, for example, by mis-representing what jobs people they're interviewing actually do. Fawkes has done a series of exposés showing that the BBC seems to often present people as neutral citizens or experts when they're actually Labour party activists, without noting that anywhere. And so on.
So, the majority of the public don't see it as some great public service anymore. For those people the BBC has negative value. It is a tax. Whilst it continues to coast for now on inertia, your opening is correct: if you proposed the BBC today people would think you were crazy because given historical experience it is obvious that a state funded broadcaster could not be competitive except in closed, protected markets. That is exactly what we see happening. Conclusion: the BBC should not exist anymore. Privatize it and let it be funded by the people whose ideologies it flatters. Given its failure to live up to its mandate, that would be a generous end.
I think you're right, but the biggest limitation on the BBC is that they can only seek revenue in one, medium-sized country.
If I was the BBC, I'd go to the government with an offer for the next charter renewal: In exchange for making the TV licence optional, let us make it a subscription service for iPlayer and sell those subscriptions outside the UK.
BBC could still make some content available for non-licence payers (the website has a huge audience and it makes sense to keep that), and broadcast would presumably theoretically require a licence for as long as it lasts before we all go streaming (though the enforcement would fade, unless they get Sky/Virgin to require a licence to subscribe to their broadcast systems). But the "tick a box to say you have a licence when you use iPlayer" could be replaced by a proper subscription service.
I'd bet the BBC would pick up more non-UK subscribers than it loses UK ones. Getting away from the endless different streaming technologies and separate subscription services (iPlayer, BritBox, BBC America, etc) would save some money on technology and also mean that more people are being served with a single system, making it easier to justify investing in it (ie making iPlayer better and catching it up with the other streaming services in technology terms).