As reported today, plans are progressing to levy an additional charge on streaming services as an extension to the TV Licence fee.

Currently standing at £180 a year, more households than ever are refusing this fee and not consuming licensable content.

As a result, many plans have been discussed and the preferred option according to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is to add some fee to subscriptions such as Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

We feel it is entirely wrong to force households to pay for media content they have expressly rejected. 

Already, viewers who do not consume BBC content but do enjoy other channels must still pay towards BBC. This is bad enough - but to add fees to independent streaming services would be unconscionable. 

BBC is not the trustworthy, high quality provider of independent media it once was. One must only look at recent controversies to see this - Donald Trump, Scott Mills, Huw Edwards - the list goes on. To force non-users of the service to pay for this is wrong on every level. 

It is time to force BBC to stand on its own merits and not rely on funds extorted from unwilling members of the public.

We urge the government to realise this proposal is not acceptable and to expect that every streaming service will be likely to take action against them if they attempt to force this media tax. 

Let the viewers choose which services they wish to buy - put BBC behind a pay wall in place of the fee. Then you will see who actually believes it is worth what it costs.