BBC boss Tony Hall: Make iPlayer watchers pay the licence fee

The director general argued that adapting the levy for the internet age was "vital" during a speech at New Broadcasting House in central London today. 

Lord Hall admitted the corporation was at "a crossroads" and the licence fee - which is not currently required to watch catch-up TV on iPlayer - must be amended to cover "catch-up television as soon as possible." 

His comments come amid renewed calls for a change to the licence fee. 

In a report published last week, the House of Commons' Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee said a licence fee should include the BBC's catch-up iPlayer service and raised the prospect of the licence fee being dropped in favour of a household levy. 

The director general said: "We've always said that the licence fee should be updated to reflect changing times. 

"I welcome the committee's endorsement of our proposal to require people to pay the licence fee even if they only watch catch-up television. 

"The committee has suggested another route to modernising the licence fee - a universal household levy.

"Both proposals have the same goal in mind: adapting the licence fee for the internet age. This is vital. Because I believe we need and we will need what the licence fee - in whatever form - makes happen - more than ever.

"In fact, I'm going to go further and argue that if we didn't have a BBC funded by a licence fee, such is the world we face, we'd have to invent it."

Those against the licence fee have likened it to a poll tax because every household with a television set has to pay it, even if they rarely or never use BBC services.

But Lord Hall argued that "people increasingly prefer the licence fee to other models of funding" and warned that a "sleep-walk into decay for the BBC" would leave the country dominated by "global gatekeepers and American taste-makers."

He said: "The BBC has never been afraid of debates about its future. What we do is undeniably good for Britain and the British public. And will become even more so in the internet age.

"So people who support the BBC will need to stand up for it, and speak up for it. Those who don't should be transparent about their motivations, and honest about the consequences."

Lord Hall also sketched out a vision for the corporation's future, which he says will let the "audience become schedulers" by targeting audiences' personal data.

Speaking about the BBC's historical drama, Wolf Hall, he said that using more personal data will allow the corporation to start "guiding you to the best of the BBC's content about the Tudors or radio shows about historical novels."

He continued: "The potential is huge to let our audience become schedulers.

"This is the start of a real transformation - the myBBC revolution. How to reinvent public service broadcasting through data. 

"But we will always be doing it the BBC way - not telling you what customers like you bought, but what citizens like you would love to watch and need to know."